


Arachne En Bleu

by dogtit



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, but i MUST stress how much of an au this is, future descriptions of body horror, it slightly parallels canon in certain parts but mostly it is completely divergent, multiverse theory irt time travel, semi beauty and the beast au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 03:11:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7873876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogtit/pseuds/dogtit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Yes, yes," said the Beast, "my heart is good, but still I am a monster."</p><p>"Among mankind," said Beauty, "there are many that deserve that name more than you, and I prefer you, just as you are, to those, who, under a human form, hide a treacherous, corrupt, and ungrateful heart."</p><p>(In another life, Talon did not brainwash Amélie Lacroix. They did far, far worse.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 0

**Author's Note:**

> so this was inevitable because i like to own up to my filthy monstergirl loving ways. anyway, this sort of spits in the face of overwatch's already janky timeline SO I FEEL NO SHAME.

Amélie Lacroix was a year into her marriage when her husband came home with a stray. Not another cat, mind; Satine was their only pet, a Bombay with a silky black coat and a bit of a pot belly from being spoiled. No, her husband opened the door of their Overwatch sanctioned apartment with a scrawny, scared looking girl under his arm. He was speaking to her in a low, considerate voice--gentle, her Gérard, always so gentle--and giving her encouragement. 

“You did great in today’s simulation, Lena,” he said. “Come, come. I want you to meet my wife. Amélie? Amélie, are you--”

“Here, _mon amour._ ” Amelie peeked her head out from behind her book, giving him and their guest a smile that was brittle. Amélie did not do well with new people, especially in her space. The girl, Lena, looked like she wanted to be here even less--

\--was that _blood_ on her face? 

Amélie was on her feet in a moment, dogearing the page of her book and setting it aside on the coffee table, her face falling into a frown. Lena’s eyes went wide and she scrunched up even more, eyes darting side to side. Though it had been wiped away, rather sloppily, Amélie was no stranger to nosebleeds and she saw the remains of one dried on the corner of the girl’s upper lip. 

“What _happened?_ ” Amélie knew her tone was sharper than it should have been by the way Lena flinched, but escape was impossible under Gérard’s heavy arm. 

“Happened in training, love. Don’t fret. Lena is okay.” He gave the girl a little shake. “Aren’t you?” 

Lena pursed her lips. Then, in a quiet voice that struggled to supress an accent, said, “Better than the rest of the trainees, that’s for sure.” 

Gérard laughed, a booming sound that Lena grimaced at. Amélie caught her eye, and tried an empathetic wince; it’d taken her a while to get used to the...volume of her husband. It was why it had taken them five years to get engaged in the first place. Well, among other things. 

“How about I get dinner started?” He gave Lena a little pat on the back. “Ladies.” He was already turning on his heel, all military precision as he about-faced and marched for the kitchen, rubbing his hands together. Amélie could already sense he was going to take his sweet time in this, and not for the first time she was swamped with both a wellspring of love for his transparent attempt to get her to be more social, and the need to throttle him. 

At least Lena seemed to share the same desires. 

“Is there a bathroom? If I could just...freshen up a little. Before Commander Lacroix--” 

Amélie tutted, gently. “Of course. Come here, I’ll lead you to it.” 

For the first time since walking through the door, Lena cracked a little smile. A brittle, hopeful thread of a thing. 

\--

Two years and six months into her marriage, Amélie set the table for tea and went back into the kitchen for the steaming kettle, and a plate of the little cinnamon biscuits they both liked. Satine made a demanding mew from her perch on top of the television, the tip of her tail twitching back and forth.

“Oh, hush,” Amélie chided gently. “She’ll be here soon.”

Not two seconds later Lena’s signature three knocks came from the wood. Amélie called for her to enter and the trainee opened the door and slipped, grinning wide. Her eyes were briefly hidden beneath her aviators but she removed them and put them in the breast pocket of her coat before hanging it on the rack. Then pulling it off, hanging it again; then repeating it for a third time. 

Amélie waited patiently, and then Lena was bounding toward her with a skip in her step and a Bombay nagging at her heels. Lena was giggling when she scooped Satine up in one arm and sat in the chair across. 

“Training went well today, I take it?” Amélie smiled wider when Lena’s eyes practically closed with her delight, much like the purring feline taking up her lap. 

“It was fantastic! Morrison himself dropped by today, just to watch me land the simulation in record time. Literally record time! Said he never saw such precision flyin’ in all his years! Can you imagine that?” Lena gave Satine a scritch behind the ears. “ _Morrison_ told me that.” 

“I’m so proud of you,” Amélie said, honestly. While not officially in Overwatch just yet, Lena was making leaps and bounds in terms of her progress. Soon she was going to be doing test runs with actual equipment. And then Amélie would be stuck on the ground waiting for both of her aerial loving idiots with sweating palms and prayers tucked under her tongue. 

Lena poured the tea into Amélie’s cup first, then her own. The smell of roses filled the air and Lena gave a little _oooh_ as she inhaled, then blew across the top. Once, twice, a third time. Three little lumps of sugar, three clockwise turns of the spoon, and three delicate taps of silver against fine china. 

Lena liked to do things by threes. Amelie didn’t add anything to her tea, preferring to sip gingerly. Lena hummed when she did the same, and there was a moment of silence broken only by Satine’s motorboat purrs. 

Lena tilted her head. Opened her mouth: “Have you heard from Gérard yet?” 

Amélie forced herself to swallow, and set her cup down. “His tour has been extended by another three months. They have a lead on Talon, so they say.” 

“Bloody hell,” Lena hissed. Lax on the control of her accent, the words were slurred and harder for it: _Bloody ‘ell._ Amélie was inclined to agree. “That’s too long.”

Amélie shrugged. “I knew that I was marrying a soldier. I suppose I should be grateful that it is only three more months, instead of three years, no?” But she knew she was slipping, too. Her words were lower, more throaty; compared to the silky smooth purr of Gérard’s flawless Parisian, her own was more rough and tumble. Annecy was no small town, certainly, but it was still a drop of water in a bucket of culture.

It made her self conscious, sometimes. God forbid anyone think she was a stuffy traditionalist. She’d left all of that behind when she’d married Gérard, when she’d followed him to the Gibraltar watchpoint.

“You’re his wife,” Lena argued. “An’ chasing after Talon all around the world’s no good for anyone, soldier or no. He needs a break and so do you.”

“A break from what, chérie?” Amélie smiled around the rim of her cup. 

“Bein’ lonely.” 

There was her Lena; horribly, wonderfully, brutally honest. Even if it ached, sometimes, Amélie would not have had her any other way. She gave the girl a look, and Lena gave her one right back. A far cry from the shy, scowling youth Gérard had first brought in. Stubborn as an ox. 

“I’m not that lonely,” Amélie said at last. “You’re too persistent to let me stay lonely.”

That got Lena to crack a laugh. She returned to sipping her tea and then followed it with a biscuit. Amélie watched and wished she had thought ahead to make lunch. She was no chef, but she could at least arrange cold cuts into a sandwich. Lena needed to eat more than she did; she was still thin as a twig.

Lena finished her biscuit and nodded to herself, as if coming to a decision after a lengthy internal debate. “You an’ me, Amélie, we should go out. Have a little night to ourselves, yeah?”

Amélie squinted suspiciously. “Are you trying to get me out of the house?”

“That’s generally what ‘goin’ out’ means, yeah,” Lena replied cheekily. 

“Lena.”

“What?” She propped Satine up in her lap and took hold of the cat’s paws in her hands. The spoiled little lump merely blinked slowly at Amélie in response. “Your dance school’s due to close for the winter break soon, innit? That means you can get in a break sometime round then. Then its just a girl’s night out. An’ if we meet a couple people who wanna be friends then that’s just a bonus!” She made Satine wave, cooing, “Ain’t that right, baby?” 

Satine meowed. Amélie, though knowing rationally that a cat could not truly understand the situation as she was still just a cat, scowled at her as if betrayed. 

“I’ll think about it,” Amélie finally said, pouring them each another cup of tea. Lena added her three sugars and looked far too pleased with herself. “When Gérard comes home, though, we might have to reschedule.”

\--

Two years and nine months and two weeks into her marriage, Gérard said that he had to leave for another tour come November. Amélie could scarcely believe it, had to sit down after he delivered the news over dinner. He’d spent more time abroad than he had with her, and that was counting their courtship. 

She’d known she was marrying a man dedicated to his work. But Amélie had thought he’d be dedicated to her, too. 

“I don’t--” Amélie set her fork down before she dropped it. “I don’t want you to go. Not this soon.”

Gérard gave a sigh, as if he’d been expecting it. It was the kind of sigh that set her teeth on edge; the sigh parents gave their fussy children. She was a grown woman, and his wife. She deserved better than that kind of sigh from her husband. 

“Amélie, please. Try to understand. Talon is a major threat that needs to be eliminated before it gets any stronger.” Gérard reached out to take her hands, and Amélie snatched them away before he could touch her. She did not want to be touched by him, not now. “Amélie,” he scolded, “please, darling, don’t be difficult. I hate to leave you--”

“--Do us a favor, Gérard,” Amélie said, her voice raw. “Don’t lie to me. Do not disrespect what we still have with a _lie._ ”

“It isn’t a lie!” 

“It is. You do not like to leave, but I don’t hear many complaints. Did you volunteer this time, Gérard? Did you ask them for another shot to take Talon down?”

Gérard’s jaw flexed as he ground his teeth. He did not answer her. That was fine, since she’d known the answer all along. Gérard was a noble man, and noble men volunteered to defeat the villains every time. 

“I respect what you’re doing for the world. I do.” She felt her voice crack. “But I would have liked to spend Christmas with my husband, this year. You weren’t around last year.” 

“Am--”

“You promised,” Amélie said quietly. “You promised to be here for Christmas.” 

She stood up, appetite spoiled. Satine watched her as she walked away from the table, away from her now guilt stricken husband, as she wandered into the bedroom. She gathered her large purse and her coat and unplugged her phone from the charger. Then, grabbed a change of clothes and a nightgown and her toiletries. She walked out and Gérard was still sitting at the table. He leapt up in a panic when she collected her keys, fearing the worst. 

“I’m going to a friend’s,” Amélie said softly. “I can’t stay inside here anymore. Not tonight.”

Gérard settled back on his heels, forced himself to step back. As if he was crowding her. For a wild moment, Amélie desperately wished he would. The last thing she needed from him was more distance, the crack in the foundation of them splintering wide. But, rationally, she knew she’d only grow to hate him if he pushed her to stay. 

“I--alright.” Amélie watched him swallow hard. “Where will--you’ll text me when you get there?” 

“I will.” 

He ran a hand over the close shaved cut of his head. “Drive safely.” 

Amélie did not reply to that. She stepped out of the door and when she got into her car she called Lena, and asked if she was still up for that girl’s night out.

\--

Nearly three years into her marriage, Amélie realized that there were different forms of death. There was the obvious; the absence of life, the lack of a heartbeat, the cease of brain functions. But there was also the death of spirit, or the death of love itself. 

It hurt to think that her love for her husband was dying. It truly did. It wasn’t because she felt she was robbed of her time; she would honestly not trade her years with Gérard for anything in the world. She had become a much different person, a better person, by meeting him. 

Amélie did not bother with a Christmas tree, or decorations. She put on the radio and watched the news and drank spiked eggnog. There was no snowfall, and tropical winters were more wet and miserable than actually cold. Satine sat on her lap and tried not to think about how silent the apartment was, or how alone she felt. 

It was a little humiliating, honestly. Alone on christmas for a second year in a row was leaving a bitter taste in her mouth; or perhaps that was the vodka. Hard to say.

Three knocks came from her door and Amélie looked up in shock. Satine bounded off of her lap and rushed to the door, tail raised high. She started to throw a fuss at Amélie, as if to say _hurry it up!_ Amélie did indeed hurry it up, putting her drink on the coaster and hustling to the door while trying to fix her hair and dress so she didn’t look like such a depressed mess. When she opened the door the person standing outside crouched down to scoop Satine up before she darted into the rain. 

The cat purred. Lena sent her a grin, even though she was drenched with rain, her leather jacket with its charming Union Jack patch shiny and slick. A waterproof duffel bag was slung over her shoulder, and she could see the tufted tip of a Santa Claus hat hastily shoved into her jacket. 

“Cheers, love!” Lena’s accent was thick and even exaggerated because she knew Amélie found it charming. “Cavalry’s here! And a little wet, so, could you maybe…?” 

Amélie ushered her inside and ran to fetch a towel while Lena hung up her coat-- _once, twice, three times as always_ \--and ruffled the mess on her head into an even bigger disaster when Amélie returned. She sat right down on the floor to let Satine rub against her, towel draped around her neck. 

“Merry Christmas, love,” Lena said brightly. “What’s on the telly, then? Is it that old movie when they were still usin’ them puppets?” 

Yes, Lena was certainly laying it on thick. For her benefit. Amélie couldn’t help but laugh, a little stunned, a little relieved, and she was stunned by how much warmer it was in the room. Either the alcohol was hitting her, finally, or maybe she was just thawing out in front of such grand company. Either way, she wasn’t going to complain. 

“Sweet, foolish girl, what are you doing here?”

“Well. Here’s how I figure it, yeah?” _‘Ere’s ‘ow I fig’r it,_ was what Amélie heard, and Lena sprung to her feet when Satine padded off of her lap. “Nobody should be alone for bloody Christmas. So if you’re alright with me crashin’ a week or two on the couch while the base is closed for the holidays, well! Y’know!” Lena rubbed the back of her damp head. “Everybody wins.”

“I…” Amélie blinked at her. “Don’t you have family to fly back home to?”

Lena’s face fell, and didn’t recover. “Not uh. Not really. Mum’s a tosser and Da’s dead, so. Y’know.”

“I’m sorry,” Amélie whispered. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s okay,” Lena told her. “I mean, it’ll be super okay if you let me crash on your couch because I sort of told Morrison that I had a place this year before he closed up the base and I really, _really_ would be shit outta luck.”

“Of cour--of course you can stay! You idiot!” Amélie burst into giggles, definitely feeling the hit of the liquor now. “Please, please stay. I’ve been bored out of my damn skull.” 

Lonely, too. But then Lena already knew that. 

“Wicked!” Lena set her bag by the coat rack and mosied over to the kitchen, right at home. “You got the ‘nog, love? Spiked?” 

“Not in the carton, but I left the bottle on the counter.” Amélie heard her rifling through the cabinets for a glass, then the hiss of the fridge as it opened. Lena was soon back with her own glass and topped Amélie off as well. They clicked the glasses together, curled up on the couch to watch decades old Christmas specials, and drank deep. 

By Amélie’s fourth glass, and Lena’s third, they were well and truly tipsy. Midnight had passed and they were still curled on the sofa, only now Amélie was reclined and Lena laying half on her, half dangling off of the couch. 

As if trying not to crowd her. Amélie dug in her claws and kept her stubbornly close, for once needing the contact. She was surprised by how starved she was for so simple a thing as a kind touch. But then, she thought bitterly, she’d been without for nearly a year. Lena sleepily lifted her head up from her shoulder, blearily staring at her. Amélie stared back, and she wasn’t drunk enough to miss the way her heart clenched tight in her chest, or the sudden, nauseated wave of dizziness that overtook her. 

It was familiar. Completely inappropriate. 

_Oh, no._ Her lips parted. Lena gave her a dopey grin. Usually the girl had an uncanny ability to read her, but it seemed that it was missing when she was properly buzzed. Thank god. 

“Merry Christmas, ‘mlie,” Lena said, laying her head back down and snuggling again. Amélie stared up at the ceiling, her heart treacherously full and ran her fingers through Lena’s hair. When she started crying, she did so silently; letting the tears simply fall. 

What a truly despicable person, Amélie thought, to fall in love like this.

\--

Three years and five months into her shambling marriage, Amélie made a decision. She would put her feelings for Lena aside and focus on what she already had; because what sort of person would she be if she tossed Gérard aside when, truly, they had barely started? Maybe it wasn’t even love, Amélie thought desperately. Maybe she was just lonely and clinging to what Lena gave her; companionship, solidarity. 

So Amélie didn’t allow herself to think of Lena as anything more than her best friend. She went onto the base and asked, quietly, if there was something--anything, anything at all--she could do. She gave up her dance school and worked in the medical wing with Angela Ziegler. She learned self defense. She learned how to shoot from Ana Amari. 

She was no recruit and certainly no soldier--she made her stance on killing very clear, that she abhorred it and could only stomach it if it was a last resort of self defence--but everyone was very kind and accommodating. Ana the most, really. The woman looked over her like a mother hawk. Amélie appreciated it, and when Gérard came back from his tour she threw her arms around him and kissed him and apologized for her behavior. 

She lied. Said she understood. That she’d try harder. And Gérard, her sweet man, Gérard told her that he would work on finding Talon from Gibraltar. That he’d work reconnaissance through computers, that he’d flown his thirty flights and then some. 

“Besides,” he said on a grin over dinner, “soon Talon will be dead in the water. All thanks to the Slipstream.”

Amélie tilted her head, frowning with confusion. “The what?”

“It’s a program that Lena’s been training for since the beginning. Very hush-hush--neither of us were allowed to tell you until she graduated from training.” Gérard leaned close, giving her a wink. “Act surprised when she comes in to brag, okay? She wanted it to be a surprise.” 

“I--of course,” Amélie murmured. “But what _is_ the Slipstream?” 

“A teleporting jet fighter. Sleeker than the wind, faster than sound. We’ve cooked up brand new, state of the art technology to let it slide through time itself. Lena could fly in, lay waste to an entire base, and then fly back out without a single scratch.” 

Amélie relaxed somewhat when she heard that, sipping at her wine. “So she’ll be safe?”

“How can they kill what they can’t touch,” Gérard boasted.

\--

Three years and eight months into her marriage, Amélie watched her best friend climb into the Slipstream. She wore a fine white scarf Amélie had given her for her twenty third birthday, giving one last little wave before the dome of the jet closed over her. Amélie waved back, even though Lena probably couldn’t see. 

Over the noise of the revving engines, when she _knew_ Lena couldn’t hear her, Amélie still shouted until she was hoarse, “Safe flight, ma chérie!” 

Lena had been waiting for it for so long. The chance to become something more, to become a hero. Amélie watched the jet take off, its roar muffled by the high quality plugs in her ears. The sleek craft soared through the skies and Lena guided it show off for her audience. 

A console close by to the ground control grew gave a great, heaving cough before it burst into flames. The crowd screamed, backing away. Amélie did not look away from the sky and watched as the Slipstream shuddered and then began to dip down into freefall. 

Then, with a horrific groan of warping metal, the Slipstream collapsed in on itself. In a flash of blue light it vanished. 

Taking Lena and Amélie’s heart with it. 

\--

Four years into her marriage Amélie quietly acquired divorce papers, but she did not file them just yet. But, god, she was so close to. Being around Gérard was unbearable when he wasn’t looking for Lena anymore. Two months ago she had simply left, found her own flat, and took Satine with her. Her last fight with her husband still rolled around in her head.

“She’s dead,” he had snapped at her in a rage. “Amélie, I know you’re hurting, but you have to _give her up._ Things like this happen. Lena knew the risks! We all knew! We can’t waste our time and resources looking for a body!” 

“Then look for _her_!” Amélie had roared back. “She would never, _ever_ give up on you and you know it! It’s not, it’s not fair! It’s not fair for all of you to give up on Lena!”

“We all loved her, Amélie,” he had said, voice clogged with emotion. “But Overwatch must move on. Agents die every day.” 

“Then you _didn’t_ love her, you loved what she gave you! She gave you all her life, her future, she gave you everything and you’re just tossing it aside--what if she’s out there?! Scared, and all alone--” 

The thought nearly drove her to madness, some nights. That Lena was alive and trapped beneath rubble, or lost in a faraway place and barely surviving. Holding out for an organization that was content to put her name on a memorial wall and move on. To cancel a project Lena had dedicated three years of her life to. It hurt more to think of Lena as dead, though, so Amélie shouldered the strain. 

Or, she thought she could. Now, as she looked down at the forms of her divorce as she sat at a cafe, smoking a clove hand rolled, she wondered if this was what the rest of her life was going to be like. Constantly weighed down by the what ifs and the could have beens. 

Maybe he was right. Maybe she should learn to let go. 

“Evenin’! Mind if I take a seat?” 

Amélie jumped when a short brunette sat at her table, smiling kindly. She looked faintly familiar, but half her face was taken up by large dark lenses. She wore a thick coat and Amélie could detect something bulky underneath it. She suspected it to be guns at first, and made to leave, before the woman held up both hands. 

“Sorry, sorry--I know, looks like a weapon, but it’s just some medical equipment. Promise.” 

Amélie studied her for a moment more before trusting her gut. She took a long drag from her cigarette and stubbed it out. “How...can I help you.” 

“More like, how can I help you? You look like you’re broodin’ an awful lot.” She must have been looking at the divorce papers behind her glasses. Amélie closed the manilla folder and stashed it, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Why are you wearing sunglasses,” Amélie asked instead of answering. 

“Minor photosensitivity,” the woman replied, flicking her long braid over her shoulder. “Makes looking at most light a chore and a half.” She held up the end of a long cane. “Helps get me around. But enough about me! What’s eatin’ you, huh? Must be awful serious if it’s got a beautiful woman like you so down.”

Amélie’s arms uncrossed. She was so drained emotionally and starving for the easy intimacy of simply _talking_ \--and this stranger, so much like her Lena in her tenderness, meant no harm--that the truth, or some if it, slipped through. “I...I lost someone very close to me, recently.” 

A soft intake of air. Then, the woman said, very softly, “I’m so sorry to hear that.” 

“But I…” Amélie’s voice shook. “But I think she’s still out there. We...we never found her body. They say there isn’t a body to be found but what if that’s because she’s alive? No one else is looking for her, no one is _trying_ and I feel so, so--”

“--so alone,” the woman finished for her. “Went through the same when I was in my twenties. My wife, see--only she wasn’t my wife then, well--she went missing for a while. Five years. Same criteria, too; no body, but no real reason to believe that she was dead. Never gave up.” She lifted a hand to show off the ring on her left hand. “So you don’t give up, either, yeah? Never give up.” 

Amélie didn’t know how to feel. Jealous, perhaps; but strangely, she felt hopeful. And, she could scarcely believe it, she felt as good as she did whenever she’d spoken with Lena. She would file for divorce, Amélie decided. She would file for divorce, and she would find Lena, and--

\--And, god willing, she wouldn’t let her go again. 

“Thank you,” Amélie said, her voice shaking with tears. “Thank you so much. I don’t--I didn’t know how much I needed to hear that.” 

The woman smiled wider. “Glad I could help, love. Hope you find her. World could always use more heroes.” 

Amélie was on her feet, bag slung over her shoulder. Something gave her pause--manners, perhaps--and she looked behind her. “Thank you, miss--”

The woman was gone.

\--

Two weeks into her divorce, and Amélie did not feel quite right. 

She couldn’t quite remember what had happened to her. She remembered a woman that was familiar, and not--encouraging her, softly, but that had to have been a dream of some kind. Had to have been. Because the woman had vanished, like a ghost. 

Amélie was very cold. Shivering. She had forgotten her anger at Gérard’s words but never her decision to end their marriage; she had brought the papers to him. He signed them with a sad heave of his shoulders, nodding. Curious, and feeling oddly feverish, Amélie quietly asked why he didn’t fight her on it. 

Gérard gave her a sad look. 

“I will fight Talon,” Gérard told her, “but I will never fight you on something like this. I promised you I would give you anything I could...I’ve been a failure in that regard for quite some time, haven’t I? Could never give you the time you deserved. Couldn’t bring Lena back to you. But I can give you this, my darling.” 

He took off his wedding band with shaking fingers and set it aside. With a steadier hand, Amélie did the same. The world pitched and spun, a strange ringing starting in her ears as he started to fill out his portion of paperwork. 

Nauseated, Amélie swallowed. There was a bitter, stinging sensation on the back of her tongue. The insides of her elbows itched. 

“There. That should...we can bring it to the lawyer in the morning.” Gérard turned his eyes up to her. “Would you--you kiss me, one last time? Stay here the night? Just...just to say goodbye. I won’t get physical, I won’t push--”

That was Gérard. Never pushing. Never grabbing. Never breaching the distance that had torn into a chasm between them. Amélie was driven by the strange desire to crawl into the darkness that had blossomed, to huddle. Safe. Secure. 

She cupped his cheek. His brows furrowed with concern. 

“Amélie,” Gérard began, voice pitching her name in a question. “You’re so cold. Are you alright?”

Liquid flooded her mouth. Her teeth ached. Something spilled over her lips as she parted them to choke out his name in a strangled goodbye; it sizzled when it landed on the carpet. Satine, tucked in her corner, hissed and spit and yowled as Amélie dipped her head to press a wet, lingering kiss against his startled, slackened mouth. 

Gérard jumped. His big hand cupped the nape of her neck tenderly for a moment, before he suddenly jerked in his chair, and threw her off of him. Amélie gasped when she hit the floor, the coughed; a backwell of fluid was expelled from her lungs, burning against the carpet and leaving behind a sickeningly sweet vapor. Amélie watched as her now official ex-husband grasped at his throat, fingers clawing. His lips were stained purple, but soon plumped to a full, horrifying black. 

Gérard hacked and sputtered; foam and blood frothed at the corners of his mouth as he sank to his knees, then fell over on his face and began to convulse. His limbs seized and danced in random directions, until he lay still. Too still. Amélie saw the carpet start to darken red with blood near his face, and a hoarse shriek left her. Spitting another purple glob as the chill of her body began to morph into heated spikes, Amélie turned him onto his side. 

He bled from his eyes, nose, mouth, even his ears. His eyes were rolled into the back of his head. When she fumbled her fingertips to his neck, there was no pulse to greet her. 

Amélie stared at the corpse of her husband as the venom that killed him poured from her mouth and she screamed.


	2. i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for mild gore, unsettling imagery, and body horror!

Tracer stepped off of the train, and the first thing she did was reach for a clove hand rolled. The cigarette rasped to life as she made sure she wasn’t blowing smoke in anyone’s space, and she took her first three drags of blessed sweetness in relative peace. Annecy was a gorgeous city, with a wide blue sky surrounded by mountains and perched at the lip of a crystalline lake. The Pearl of the French Alps lived up to its name; even in the good ol’ year 2076 it had a traditional, old timey charm. 

If it weren’t for the big anti-omnic signs and propaganda slathered all over the windows, well shoot, it’d be a fine place to settle down once she was done with her mission. Assuming the need for the Overwatch recall had passed, that was. 

It left a bad taste in her mouth to ignore it, really, it did. For Winston to break the law and send out a worldwide S.O.S. to any former Overwatch agent who might just be listening in, it had to be big. Athena probably talked him out of it thousands of times before. Her instincts nagged at her to answer it, to call Winston back...but she didn’t. 

She wouldn’t. 

“Right, then,” Tracer said, her handrolled tucked in the corner of her mouth like one of Jesse’s fancy cigars. “Let’s get on with it.” 

This was the worst part, really. She only had rumors and leads to go on. This wasn’t her first go at Annecy, either; she’d come to the city the first thing once she was on her feet and used to her newfound existence as ‘chronally disassociated’. But she’d heard an anonymous tip of seeing a bird with long black hair and gold eyes glimpsed headed to the mountains, and well, Tracer was catching the first train. 

Detective work with limited resources stunk, Tracer thought to herself as she meandered to a cafe. She ignored any double takes, or worse yet, someone pointing out the huge metal harness that hung on her chest. She was doing nothing of the illegal sort, after all. She wasn’t a hero; just a girl looking for a friend. 

She ordered a hot tea and sat outside, eyes roaming the tops of the mountains as she kept her hands in the pockets of her bomber jacket. Amélie’s scarf was tucked against her neck and helped to ward off the persistent chill. The waitress set down her tea and before she left, Tracer pulled out the old photo she carried with her always and tenderly unfolded it. 

“Ma’am,” Tracer said in French, “have you seen a woman like this around here?” She tapped at Amélie’s face against the picture--a last minute selfie taken together before Tracer had boarded the Slipstream--and watched the waitress hesitate. 

“Why would someone like you be looking for her?” The girl’s voice was sharp with suspicion. 

Tracer sagged in her chair. “She’s my friend. I’ve been looking for her for five years. Just...wanted to know if you’d caught a glimpse, maybe.”

“I haven’t. Enjoy your tea.” 

There was a time cute girls lingered by her, Tracer thought as she added three spoonfuls of sugar to her drink. Now people avoided her like the plague and it stunk somethin’ fierce. She took a sip of her tea with a tired sigh, and hear the scrape of a chair being pulled out. An old woman sat herself at Tracer’s table, sighing with relief. 

She was a tiny thing, hunched over herself and bundled up like a little catepillar. She squinted at Tracer with unusually clear eyes, and gave a nod. 

“Yep,” the old woman said in creaky French, “you’re not having a great day.”

Tracer blinked slowly, then laughed as she set her tea down. “That obvious, love?” 

“Could feel you brooding from the moon, dearie.” The old woman gestured to the photo Tracer still had spread out on the table. “May I see that?” 

Tracer slid it to her, half amused. “Help yourself.” 

She took another sip of tea and let her thoughts wander as the old woman peered at the photo, turning it this way and that. She thought about Overwatch five years ago. How the Swiss H-Q had exploded and claimed two founders, the third nearly lost. How Angela dragged Ana Amari out of the rubble, burned and missing limbs and an eye. How Ana had cried out for Gabriel, and Jack--how she’d been despondent when put into forced retirement, under her daughter’s care. Her daughter, who served the Egyptian military. 

There were some people who just needed to stay out of the fight, Tracer decided. She hoped Ana hadn’t gotten the recall, had ignored it too. Losing Amélie had been like losing little Fareeha for Ana, and while Ana leant her money and help when she could in Tracer’s search, Tracer could sense Ana was starting to lose her faith too. Everyone did. Everyone but Tracer.

Thinking about Amélie made her think about the moment she’d been dragged out of the Slipstream long enough to drill the chronal anchor deep in her chest. How she’d slumped onto the operating table, broken and bleeding from the rush job--how Angela had started to sob, poor Angie, why was it always Angie?--and how Winston had gotten her a shirt and her harness. 

The one thing she’d managed to salvage completely was Amélie’s scarf. The rest of her personal belongings had been tossed, sent back to her mother--so, essentially, tossed. When Tracer had asked about Amélie, that she was _sure_ she’d made Amélie her emergency contact, everyone had gotten really quiet and sad. 

Amélie had vanished, presumed dead though there’d been no body to collect. Gérard and little Satine were dead from poison, a suspected Talon attack. Angela had developed an antivenom, injected everyone who even thought about striking against Talon; nanomachines keyed into the exact molecular structure of the toxin, ready to eliminate it. Made them poisonproof, in the end, because the fucking serum was _bizzare._ Neurotoxic, hemotoxic, all the kinds; like the world’s worst snake bite. Even the vapor could drop an agent dead in large enough doses, of which there had been no short supply of in the apartment. 

When they’d told Tracer of Amélie’s one-woman crusade to find a body after the Slipstream, how could she not pay her friend back in kind? Even though she’d had to pull double shifts every day, ran her weary body to the limit, trying to find a hint--a _clue_ \--

“Oh, my,” the old woman suddenly said, “oh, I know this young woman!” 

Tracer’s head snapped to the side so fast she got a little crick in her neck, and forced back a yelp of pain. “Wait, what--p-point her out, love, so I know you’re not meanin’ me.”

The old woman smoothed out the photo and pointed to Amélie’s smiling face. “This one! Yes, yes, I remember her...showed up, hm, two years ago? I reckon? Vanished up into the mountains in the east, she did. Went straight down a path into the wood; probably had a little cottage home, or something. Beauty like that, well, you don’t forget.” 

“A-are you sure? Positive?” Tracer shook. 

“Absolutely.” The old woman leaned in, eyes twinkling. “I wouldn’t lie to an Overwatch agent looking for her friend. Not after all the good you’ve done for the world.” 

Tracer laughed, astonished. She finished off her tea in one go, slapped down more than enough money for it and the tip, and gingerly took the photo with shaking hands. “You got no idea what this means to me, love. I’ve been--looking for her, for, for--” 

“Yes, yes, of course. Go get her, champ.” 

Tracer bounded to her feet, was about to set herself off into a blink, when the old woman called out, “Do yourself a favor, though! Don’t shoot!” 

Tracer turned her head with a raised brow, and found the old woman gone.

\--

Tracer found that path, and saw that it was blocked off and overgrown. That alone would have set off warning bells, but if Tracer let herself be stopped by something like that, she’d collapse under the weight of her disappointment. 

Even if Amélie was no longer at her little cottage, or whatever, there would still be clues. It was the strongest lead Tracer had in years, so she blinked over the blockade and started to beat feet down the path. Despite being overgrown in places, the trail was still marked by the remains of what had once been signs. Only the moldy stumps of the wooden signs remained, but it was enough for Tracer. 

Despite the fact that it was a little past one in the afternoon, Tracer noticed that the forest grew darker and gloomier the further she walked in. Finally it got to a point where she had to fish out the small, powerful flashlight she kept clipped to her belt and clicked it on, helping to light her way through the misty gloom. 

Tracer paused. The forest was dead quiet. With some dread, she looked up as she slid her goggles off of her neck and onto her face, pointing the flashlight at the canopy. The branches, she discovered with some disgust, were absolutely laden with spiderwebs. The glimmering, silver strands were so densely packed together that they blocked the sunlight. 

Annecy had a spider problem. Who knew? Was a good thing Tracer didn’t care about creepy crawlies. Amélie, however, had a great fear of them. Another sign that Amélie had probably moved on, but dammit, Tracer was going to find at least _some_ hint about her before she gave up on Annecy for good. 

Her hand settled on the butt of her pistol, and then she remembered the old woman’s advice. _Don’t shoot._ Rubbish, wasn’t it? But…

...She just had a feeling. Tracer forced her hand to hang at her side as she worked her way in deeper. The further she went into the woods, the thicker the spiderwebs became until she saw great tapestries of them woven between the tree trunks. Small birds and rodents were caught in them, she noticed, and turned her eyes away with a sick stomach. 

The circle of light caught something that gleamed metallic. Tracer sucked in a breath, and approached. Reaching out to a dense packet of foliage with a gloved hand, she met something solid and metal. A wall? A _wall._ She followed it around until it led the dilapidated remains of what must have been a mercenary base. At least, it had to be one if the webbing covered jeeps parked just in front of a solid steel door were any indication. 

Chills ran up her spine. _What the hell happened here?_ The jeeps were empty of corpses, at least, but there were deep gouges in the doors. Anything sharp enough to tear into reinforced metal was a bad sign, to Tracer, but she turned to the door and approached. The flashlight quivered in her hand; with the other she reached out, and brushed aside sticky webbing from the thick handle, and gave it a turn. 

Or tried to. She had to put the whole weight of her body into it as she shoved it open. It cracked just wide enough for her to slip in, scraping against the metal harness of her chronal accelerator with a screech before slamming shut behind her. 

It was nearly pitch black. The air was thick and reeked of old rot and mold. Tracer coughed and covered her mouth and nose with Amélie’s scarf. It lessened the smell only some, but now she could inhale without getting a lungful of gross. 

Tracer moved the flashlight across the lobby and felt her stomach drop from nausea and horror. If spiders had a palace, or any sense of a monarchy, well, this would be it, wouldn’t it? Thousands of the eight legged beasties scattered from her light, multitudes of species skittering for the dark and higher to the rafters. Fiddlebacks and Widows were among the ones that Tracer could identify just offhand, and then she looked up higher. 

“Oh sweet fuckin’ lord,” she breathed. 

Hanging from the ceiling were...corpses. Half mummified, swarming with more bugs. Red Deer drained to withered old husks, their graceful bodies contorted in frozen agony. Rabbits, foxes, small mammals. And, Tracer noted, humans. 

Humans in familiar black body armor, familiar masks hanging from their fingertips. Talon agents. Tracer took cautious steps forward, eyes on the ceiling and her heart hammering in her chest. Her increased adrenaline fueled the accelerator, the blue light growing brighter and readying itself for her to use it for a blink. Not that Tracer could concentrate on that right now, anyway. Unlike the animals--many of which were fresh, Tracer realized with dread--the Talon agents corpses were years’ old. Explained the smell, anyway. There had to be dozens of them hanging above just in the sprawling lobby. 

“What takes out a whole Talon facility,” Tracer murmured to herself, “and hangs them up in _spider webs?_ ”

She stepped forward into air. The floor had been so thick with web that Tracer hadn’t seen the huge hole gouged into the stone until she was falling forward with a shriek. Her flashlight tumbled out of her hand and before she could think about a recall, the side of her head slammed into a rusted pipe and cracked it--and her skull--wide open. 

White lights danced in her vision, even as she felt a lot of sticky somethings catch onto her limbs. Some of them snapped until they didn’t, until she hung upside down. The flashlight had been caught too, and shown down on her like some macabre spotlight. Tracer winced, coughing as the dust settled. When she opened her eyes, squinting over her accelerator, she saw her legs and waist twisted up in spider webs. 

“This is the most bizzare fucking thing,” Tracer said out loud, woozily. There was no way Amélie had been here, she decided. Unless she had been taken by Talon and ferried off to here...but then, she’d be at the mercy of whatever sick fuck had strung up corpses to the ceiling and shoved millions of spiders into the place. Just that thought had her heart fit to burst with horror, so Tracer did what she did best; counted out all the multiples of three and calmed herself down. 

Amélie hadn’t been here. Amélie was not here, either in body or spirit or corpse. That just meant she was alive somewhere else. Maybe she’d hit the wrong cottage, or something. 

That was when Tracer became aware of the water starting to fall down on her. The accelerator sensed liquid and sealed itself up tight with a series of whirs and hisses, hiding the calming blue light and going into standby. 

“You daft fuck, it’s not rain!” Tracer shouted at her chest. “Open up! I have to recall--oh, you absolute knobhead.” 

Tracer hung there for the next five minutes, bleeding from her face and getting soaked from the pipe. It was not her proudest moment, truly, but finally she felt like she could start getting herself back together. 

Then something moved. 

A shadowy something, further up--where the pipe was. It crawled over the lip of the hole Tracer had fallen down, scuttling down without any assistance. Stopping by the pipe, it hauled the thing in place and stopped the water...somehow… 

Tracer jerked at her legs, tried to get one free. Failed. At once, the shadow turned to face her, and Tracer saw eight blazing points of read narrowed in on her. Her breathing ratcheted up a degree and she nearly fumbled for her gun as the lights started to move down for her, supernaturally fast to be anything human. 

_Don’t shoot._

Tracer went still. Pulled her hands away from her belt and shivered as the shadow stopped just above the glare of the flashlight. She thought she caught hints of purple before it moved in front of the light entirely. 

Tracer opened her mouth. Croaked with horror. 

It was hideously made, was the first instinctive thought. A spider’s abdomen as big as a horse, with legs stretching out twice its length. At least, two pairs of them resembled spider legs. The third set looked human, with an elbow and a wrist and five fingers and everything. Though they were all covered in a thick, black-purple chitin and tipped with vicious looking claws. 

Claws that could rend through reinforced steel, no doubt. But the worst was the stitched together human torso that stuck up out of the mess. Waist up, it looked human, if only colored purple. Long black hair tumbled down svelte shoulders tangling around a pair of normal looking human arms. Though the face was cast completely in shadow, Tracer found that the eight lights were really eight _eyes_ that stared down at her. 

In contemplation. Hesitance. Like a giant spider-centaur-horror-movie creature was afraid of _her._

Tracer’s accelerator chose that moment to recognize that there was no longer any rain falling upon it, and clicked back open with a flash of blue light. Both of them recoiled, the creature with a deep hiss of malice and Tracer with a startled gasp. 

Then, a sob. “Oh my god. Oh my _god._ ”

She’d recognize that face anywhere. Those sharp cheekbones, made more angular by time. The hairline. The special frown that, even when accompanied by jutting, dripping fangs the size of Tracer’s finger, made her want to do everything in her power to wipe it away. 

Or maybe that was the concussion.

Either way. Tracer grinned up as best she could as she felt the world narrowing down, shrinking to darkness. 

“Cheers, love,” she said. “Cavalry’s here.”

Silence. The creature looked at her, and slowly those fangs retracted with a wet click. Poison drooled down its chin. 

“Sorry it took me so long,” Tracer continued, her voice soft, beseeching. “You’re just an awfully hard...spider to find. C’mon, love. I’m not gonna hurt you--I’d never hurt you.” She made a soft noise, a strangled hiccup. “Never, ever, _ever._ I-I’m your friend.” 

The creature made a sound. Mouthed the word in English, testing it. In a rasp, it repeated, “ _Friend?_ ” 

“Your best friend.” 

“Best…” Two of its eyes fluttered, while the other six just stared down at her with that sickening red. Then suddenly the red bled away to orange until it turned a soft, familiar gold. Gold that had haunted Tracer’s dreams. Gold she’d chase to the ends of the earth for. There was no sclera or pupil to speak of, not anymore; just solid gold orbs that gleamed with blue light from her accelerator. 

A beat of silence. Then the spider reeled back, hands flying to the mouth. 

“ _Lena?_ ” Amélie Lacroix whispered.


	3. ii

Lena woke up with a pounding headache, cradled against something too firm to be human skin and corpse-cold. It was too dark and her accelerator’s light pressed the solid object. It made the shadows thrown around them all the more horrifying. Yet, Lena wasn’t really afraid; her head hurt and she felt like she was minutes away from vomiting, sure, but she couldn’t have been out for more than a few minutes. She could already feel Angela’s nanobots swarming up from the implant in her chest moving to the ache in her head, stabilizing it. 

Wonders of modern medicine. 

She heard tight whispering from above, a woman chanting, “Please, no, please, please please, no no _no_ , please--” and Lena felt the last twenty minutes slap her in the face. The forest. All the webbing, everywhere. Corpses, a hole in the floor. 

A spider. _Amélie._

Lena jerked with a gasp, crying out, “Amélie, where are--”

“--Lena, please, hold still!” 

Lena held herself very still, her breathing too sharp and too quick. Panic settled in as the jostling descent slowed to a stop. Unobstructed now that she was leaning back, her accelerator lit up Amélie’s face again. Though the nanotech was clearing away the haze and cause of her concussion, Lena still felt a little unbalanced with relief and horror all in one. Her heart hammered; her accelerator gave another warning whine. 

Amélie’s face was broken with grief. It was hard to tell where she was looking, since she had three more pairs of eyes crowning her forehead where eyebrows used to sit. Lena chanced a look up and saw that they’d just gone down further into the hole, moving for the underground. Talon had a reputation for cartoon villain levels of underground lairs. Though, now, it was Amélie’s underground lair. 

God. Lena looked back down at her face, and reached up with a shaking hand. Amélie flinched back, two eyes squeezing shut, but Lena only touched her cheek with the tips of her fingers. 

“It...it’s really you, isn’t it?” She asked in a shaking whisper. “Amélie? Amélie Lacroix?”

A ragged breath was drawn between sharp teeth and purple lips. Amélie opened her closed eyes and looked at her. “That was my name, once. Yes.” Lena realized as Amélie pulled her closer that Amélie had wrapped two arms around her waist, and a third was tucked beneath her knees. 

Eight...eight limbs. Right. Spider. That’d take some getting used to.

“Let me get us down to the lower level, Lena,” Amélie said in a low voice. Much as Lena hated to think it, her voice was far too familiar with that undercurrent of deep sadness in it. “You can lay down. It is not as...it’s better, for you.” 

“Okay,” Lena said, and wrapped her arms around Amélie’s neck. Amélie made a soft sound in her throat, a choked sob, and they were moving again. Lena closed her eyes and tried not to think about what was upstairs. 

About what Amélie had seemingly done. About what she _was_ , now. 

Finally the chill of the base gave way to an unexpected warmth, slightly humid but welcoming. Lena pushed her goggles down, let them hang beneath the scarf around her neck. She’d been right about the underground facility theory, Lena realized. Though Amélie had--had she?--tunneled through to the upper lobby, the actual base beneath was mostly untouched. It wasn’t clean, by any means; it was dusty and the floors were dirty--but it wasn’t the webcovered nightmare Lena had walked into. 

Amélie set her down gently. Lena wobbled on her feet for just a moment, then she took a step back and looked at her friend. She was still an impossible creature made flesh; Amélie had been olive skinned with bright gold eyes and thick black hair. Amélie _now_ was colored purple, with some odd suit over the torso of her human half and, well. She looked like she was half _spider._

Lena remembered again, very vividly, that Amélie hated spiders. _Oh, god._

“I-I--,” Amélie wrung her hands together, speechless. She looked terrified and mortified on top of it, like she was waiting for Lena to call her disgusting. Lena took another step back, but only so she could launch herself at the other woman with a sob. 

Amélie reared back with a startled little noise, the second pair of her arms opening wide to receive her. Lena mashed her face against Amélie’s chilled navel. It was weird and Lena thought she might still be a little in shock, but honestly, Amélie alive as a spider was better than a dead Amélie. 

“Y-you’re _alive_ ,” Lena rasped. Her whole body shook and she choked on her next words, turning them into a messy sob. “I can’t believe you’re _alive!_ ”

There was the sound of not human legs shifting on the metal floor beneath them, and chitinous hands gently pushed her away only for Amélie to settle her form on the ground and drew her back in. Hugs were different with four sets of arms; Lena felt like she was surrounded, and her face was pressed against the too-smooth skin of Amélie’s neck. 

Held so tightly, Lena realized that Amélie was shaking too. 

“I should be the one saying that to you,” Amélie choked. “Lena… _Lena_ , I thought I would never see you again…”

They held each other for a long, long while. Long enough for the tears to dry, and for Lena to start remembering that the Amélie in her arms was not the same one who’d vanished years ago. She put her hands on Amélie’s shoulders and lightly pushed back; Amélie clung just a touch tighter for a moment, before she let go. 

God, but she was big. Lena was average, 163 centimeters. Even with the underside of her...her abdomen, jesus, Amélie was about twenty centimeters taller. Lena didn’t know if she wanted Amélie to stand back up yet. 

“What happened to you,” Lena finally forced herself to ask, lifting both hands to frame Amélie’s face. “You’re--”

“A monster. I know.” Amélie jerked free of Lena’s grasp, and stood with eerie grace. “Please. Not, not here. There are other rooms--I think there is still medicine. Something to wipe the blood off.” 

“Blood?” Lena raised her hand and prodded at her scalp. Her fingertips came back damp with diluted red. “Hell, I could have cracked my damn head open. Lucky for me I got a thick skull, eh? Eh?” 

Amélie frowned at her, as if unable to understand how Lena could joke about anything. Didn’t she remember that Lena liked to use humor to get through tough times? Maybe not, Lena realized a little sadly. It’d been five whole years, after all. Sobering up, she wiped her fingers against her pants. 

“Lead the way, then?” 

Amélie hesitated, before she moved. It was creepy as all get out, Lena realized. 

_What the fuck happened to you, love?_

\--

The base had been equipped to be self running, Lena noticed. That was the only possible explanation for the electricity, the water. She doubted Annecy would extend its utilities out to a spider’s lair. Then she felt guilty for thinking of the place as a lair at all. It was all Amélie had. 

She was lead into what had once been an office, though the desks and cabinets were shoved aside to make room for a spread of well work mattresses and a storm of blankets. It was a nest, Lena realized. A sad attempt at normalcy. 

“I, um. It’s not much. And of course I can find another--room, I think there’s still some bunks here,” Amélie muttered. “For you to rest--” 

“Amélie,” Lena interrupted. “This is--this is fine. I feel fine! I don’t need rest. Doc’s tech patched me up good.” 

Amélie very much looked like she wanted to avoid telling the story altogether, but Lena had spent five years tracking her down and she’d be damned if she let it go that easily. She reached out--and stood on her tiptoes--to take Amélie’s hand in her own, holding it tight. Amélie looked startled and flustered by the contact, her hackles rising for a moment before she forced herself to settle down. She moved for the nest of blankets and bedding and sat down, tucking the long limbs around her. Though disturbed, Lena followed and plopped herself on the edge. Neither of them let go.

Amélie breathed in. Her second pair of arms wound around herself in a hug. 

“I don’t...I don’t remember what they did to me,” was what she said in a shaking whisper. “The last thing I can recall...clearly, at least, is that I was filling out divorce papers. It was at night. There was a woman there--and she told me not to give up on you. To never give up. And then I woke up in my flat, tired and sore.” 

Lena squeezed her hand. “Go on…?”

“Two weeks later, I...I-I…” She put a free hand to her mouth, two eyes screwed shut in pain. Her voice was rough with unshed tears as she grated, “Two weeks later, I gave Gérard a kiss goodbye, and he--he died. There was poison in my mouth...venom...I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what I’d done, what was happening to me, so I ran. I ran, Lena.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lena said in return. “I’m so sorry, Amélie. You can sto--”

“I ran to Annecy, with nothing but the clothes on my back and my purse. I ran,” Amélie continued to mutter, forcing her eyes open. They flickered orange, like the embers of a dying fire. “I tried to go back home, but there were men. Men in white masks and men in black. They were chasing me...into the woods. They caught me, dragged me here--” 

“Amélie,” Lena said, a little louder as she gripped her hand. “Amélie, love, stay with me. Amélie, you don’t to go on, I--”

“They called me names. A name. Not my name, another name. Wanted to know how I escaped…” Amélie’s breathing grew ragged, and she shook her head. The heel of her hand pressed against her temple and she whined, low. “I spat at them. Poison. They...they brought out their guns…” 

Amélie’s voice pitched low at the word. Her eyes flickered again. Her jaw flexed as she ground her teeth, like she was forcing the words out now. This wasn’t what Lena wanted at all. She’d just wanted to know how--how Amélie had become--

“I bit one. I bit him. I couldn’t help it,” Amélie wailed. “They were going to hurt me again. I didn’t feel right. So I bit him! And that felt right. I bit him and I killed him, I know I did. _And it felt right, Lena._ ” 

Lena jerked her hand free of Amélie’s grip, half frightened and half because her friend had been squeezing so tight that it had started to hurt the bones in her hand. Amélie hissed in reaction, flinching like she’d been slapped across the face. Lena opened her mouth to apologize, but never got the chance. 

“They locked me in a room, a cold room, Lena, and they called me…” She clutched at her head. “...They...they called me…”

“W-what,” Lena asked, her voice small and quivering as she stood to her feet. “What did they call you?”

Amélie jerked with a snarl. Her head slowly rose up, eyes burning orange. When she breathed, purple vapor steamed from between her lips. 

“ _Widowmaker,_ ” she murmured, before her eyes flooded with red.

Lena didn’t think. She flung herself into a blink, thrown backwards as Amélie lunged at the spot where she’d sat only seconds before, her face pinched with confusion and annoyance. Amélie rose up on legs again, throwing aside the blankets and turned her eyes onto Lena’s proper position, narrowing in on her. 

She didn’t look angry, was the kicker. Hyperfocused, Lena thought. Then Amélie’s mouth opened and sharp fangs slid free, slick with poison. The accelerator chimed that it had recharged the first blink, and Lena turned on her heel and blinked out the door. She danced on the tips of her toes, picked a direction and threw herself forward again, leaving a streak of blue. A third blink had her around the corner and she pumped her legs for the rest, ducking around another hallway and pressing herself against the wall, hands moving to her belt again. 

The pistol’s grip fit into her palm and Lena drew it into her hands, breathing hard. The accelerator needed time to recharge; to ask it for a blink now would put her in jeopardy of being tossed back into the Slipstream all over again, and honestly? That was the lesser of two evils. 

Evils. _Fuck._ How could she think that? Lena stared down at the gun in her hands. Taking it out had been instinctive, her body urging her to get ready for a fight before she was killed. To take the threat down before it got to hear. 

Amélie had called herself a monster. Had struggled for five years with the weight of guilt and the horror and self hatred after whatever Talon did to her--and god _what had they done to her_ \--and Lena’s first action was to grab for her gun after asking her to wrench those memories up all over again. 

_They brought out their guns...._

Lena stared at her weapon. 

_Don’t shoot,_ the old woman had cautioned. 

Lena felt curiously like she was at a crossroads. She could either shoot at Amélie, hope that the sound would startle her out of whatever state she was in now; or she could get rid of the gun, and try to talk her out of it. She knew what she should do, what a smart person would do. Lena took a deep, shuddering breath and stuffed the gun back into its holster, then unclipped it and shoved it into the paper refuse of the nearest bin. 

What good what a little pulse pistol had done against Amélie anyway? Lena sank against the wall as she heard the clatter of legs against metal, squeezing her eyes shut. Her whole body went into a cold sweat as she forced her feet to move, away from the bin and her gun and out into the open.

“Amélie?” She called out, voice shaking. The sound of something big moving stopped. “Amélie? I’m sorry--I’m sorry I ran.” Lena’s voice bounced off of the walls. “You just...gave me a startle, love!” 

A shadow fell over her. Lena looked up. Amélie hung down above her, eyes blazing. Lena yelped a curse as she dropped, scrambling against the ground. Cold hands grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head, locking. Amélie loomed above her, so close that Lena could see her own terrified reflection in her crimson gaze, refracted eight times. Those fangs, so close--

A drop of venom dripped over and landed on her cheek. It stung like all hell and sizzled against her skin, making her hiss with pain; the nanotech recognized the biochemical makeup of the venom and flooded the spot with waves of heat, breaking it down at an atomic level. 

At least that worked, Lena thought. Gérard hadn’t died prettily.

The sound of her pain seemed to give Amélie pause, even as this, because she leaned away a little and one of those armored hands reached up to messily wipe at her mouth. 

“Afraid,” Amélie said after a moment. “I...was afraid. Why? Did you make me afraid?” 

Lena squinted. “Amélie?”

A shake of the head. Lena drew in a breath. 

“W...Widowmaker,” she tried again, her voice nothing but a squeak. 

“That is what the men called me. When I was like this. When they made me afraid.” Her face darkened. “When I killed them.”

Lena opened her mouth, but Amélie--or Widowmaker--or whatever she was calling herself now, what the hell--interrupted her. “I saw you. You called me your friend, that you would never hurt me. But here I am. I was afraid, so I came out.” 

Lena was no sort of doctor, but she knew what disassociation was. How sometimes getting out of your own mind was the only way to cope, how sometimes you had no control over it. So she inhaled, nodding, even as her heart wept for what her friend must have gone through. 

“I asked you to tell me what happened,” she began cautiously. “I’m...I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked so soon. I didn’t know.” 

Widowmaker stared down at her, unblinking. “Do you have a gun?”

Lena shook her head now. “No. I don’t.”

“Good. I don’t like guns.” Widowmaker’s face was lax. “I would have killed you for it.”

_Fucking hell,_ Lena thought. She’d dodged a bullet by not shooting one in the first place. She let out a low, wheezing sigh of relief and went slack, though her body still trembled with adrenaline. “Were you just curious about me, love?”

“Yes.” 

“Sorry I ran,” Lena said, stunned at herself. “Guess that didn’t color me in a good light.” 

“It did not,” Widowmaker replied bluntly. Her eyes flickered. “I am not so afraid now.” She leaned in close again, fangs close to the skin of her neck. Lena held herself very, very still. “This will happen again. There are things I can’t do unless I’m like this…” 

Things Amélie couldn’t bring herself to do. Lena licked at her lips, flexed her fingers. “Then I guess we’ll be seein’ a lot of each other?” 

“You are staying? Here?” 

“I’m stickin’ to you, love,” Lena said simply. “Where you, Amélie, goes, I’m gonna be three steps behind. I told you, it took me five whole years to find you. I’m not giving up. W-we’re friends.”

“Friends,” Widowmaker repeated, and released her hands. Her eyes were fading again, Lena saw, and she moved back to let her sit up and flex her fingers, get the blood flowing again. Widowmaker’s stare was more piercing than Amélie’s ever was, until her eyes were gold again. She appeared dazed, as if she wasn’t sure how she’d gotten in the hallway. Lena took that moment to touch at her own cheek, prodding the spot where the venom had splattered onto her; she was relieved to feel just a bit of tender skin and not, well, another hole in her face.   
From what she’d read of the reports, Gérard’s face had suffered much, much worse. 

“L-Lena?” 

Amélie whispered her name in shock, hands clasped to her chest. Lena looked up to give her an easy grin, the kind Amélie had always brought out of her back when she’d been a string bean trainee lost in lonely ol’ Gibraltar. She made sure to keep her posture relaxed, tossed a salute Amélie’s way. 

“You mentioned somethin’ about gettin’ a nap, love?” Lena sprung to her feet. “I’m feelin’ like one of those myself.”

“But I...where…”

“Now, now, let’s not work ourselves up more,” Lena said, hurrying to curb Amélie’s mind off of the subject. It might make her dip right back into that Widowmaker mindset, whatever it was. Lena didn’t feel like it was a good idea to push her luck, either way. She reached out and, seeing as how Amélie’s human hands were far out of her reach, took up one of the chitin covered ones. The fingers twitched before wrapping around her hand, gently. Surprisingly so, considering what must have been done with them.

“Well?” She gently tugged Amélie’s arm, looking up at her. “Love?” 

“A...nap. Rest,” Amélie mumbled, and slowly began to move. One spider leg over the other. She looked ahead blankly, as if on autopilot. “...You’re real,” she said, suddenly, looking down at Lena with wide eyes. “Aren’t you?”

Lena thumped her stomach, as her chest was blocked with metal. “Real as can be, Amélie.”

Amélie’s lower lip quivered, and then Lena found herself scooped up like a child. She yipped at the sudden increase of height, but her heart broke when Amélie simply buried her face in the top of her hair, breathed out a sob. It was strange to be supported by four arms, and so easily, but Lena found herself adapting to it quickly enough. With a soft sigh she threw an arm over Amélie’s shoulder, looking up at her. 

Fat tears rolled down hollowed, sharp blue cheeks. Lena gasped, reached up to wipe them away with a hurried, “Oh no, no, love, don’t cry. Oh, shhh, there now.”

“I-I am sorry. I can’t...s-stop crying,” Amélie murmured in distress. “I’m scared that this is all a dream.” Then she said, “Is it bad that I hope it is? A dream, I mean. Then when I wake up, I won’t be _this._ ”

“Now you stop that kind of talk,” Lena scolded gently, flicking Amélie’s nose. “Dunno about you, but my head’s achin’.” 

It wasn’t, thanks to Angela’s medicinal implant, but that seemed to spurr Amélie on into moving back for the room. Amélie settled back into the little mattress nest, curling her legs beneath her and stretching out. Lena breathed out a little when Amélie refused to let go, still, cradling her close. It couldn’t have been comfortable with the accelerator in the way, but Amélie refused to let her out of the cage of her arms except to rummage down for a blanket. Lena was still in damp clothes and Amélie was frigid, and even when her friend closed her eyes there were six others trained on Lena’s face, but Lena wasn’t about to move for the world. 

“I’m scared,” Amélie confessed in a whisper. “What if I open my eyes, and you’re gone?”

“I won’t be gone,” Lena breathed back. “I’m stayin’ put. I’m with you. Please, believe me. Trust me...” 

There was a moment. And then, Amélie sighed, “ _Always, chérie._ ”


	4. iii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey my dudes do you see what i have here after months of stalling????? 
> 
> headcanons galore abound! this is completely unbetad and rough and it might not be 10000% good so i hope the hype doesnt backlash on me here. anyway!! i hope you manage to get some enjoyment out of it anyway! 
> 
> and i also hope i managed to portray the trauma of amelie's DID in a respectful manner. im not an expert on it and half the reason (aside from good ol fashioned procrastination) this chapter took so long was because i tried to research what i could about it. anyway, enough stalling!

Amélie awoke as she always did after the Widowmaker released her hold over their body; curled up in the mangled remains of that godforsaken room where the Widowmaker had been born. She regarded the padded walls with disdain, looking at the old wounds carved deep into the steel. The Widowmaker hadn’t been very pleased with her treatment, and Amélie supposed that she should be grateful that her alter (that was what they were called, right?) seemed to care about her wellbeing. Amélie herself shuddered as she drew herself up, leaving the room behind and shoving the battered door closed. 

It was dented and warped from constant use. The old shame was bitter and made her skin crawl. 

The foggy memories that the Widowmaker allowed her told Amélie that she’d had...breakfast. The lingering taste of blood and bitter sweetness in the back of her mouth told her that too. A rabbit, this time; the forest was getting wise to avoid the Widowmaker’s web. Amélie ducked into the chemical lab that had to serve as her bathroom, as it was the only thing big enough. She brushed her teeth at the heavy duty sink to cleanse her mouth of the taste, and washed her hands. 

It wasn’t until she meandered back into the bedroom that she remembered Lena. Her heart clenched painfully tight when she saw the girl curled up in the blankets, an arm under her head and her face slack with sleep. She was shivering, brows furrowing; they’d slept through the night and Lena’s clothes had been wet and damp from the opened pipe Amélie had barely managed to fix. . 

Amélie knew that she did not have the body heat necessary to give the girl any sort of soothing warmth, but she couldn’t help herself. She drew the blankets tighter around Lena and gathered her up, heard the girl mumble in sleepy confusion as she was moved. Heart pounding, Amélie murmured, “It’s only me, sweet. Stay asleep…”

Lena did. Though her shivering didn’t cease entirely, the tightly pinched expression slowly relaxed and the corners of her lips curled. That Amélie could provide some measure of comfort even in her twisted body, and especially as the Widowmaker had terrorized her only hours earlier, seemed more like an impossibility than her very existence. 

Amélie crinkled her nose. That was melodramatic, even for her. 

She ran her fingertips over Lena’s hair, stroked over her face. Someone like her had no business in laying their hands on Lena, but she couldn’t help herself. Even when she recalled seeing the stark terror on Lena’s face as she was grabbed, pinned down--how her hands could have been used to rip Lena apart like paper--she only hesitated for seconds before stroking over the bridge of her nose. 

Once upon a time, this would have been a dream come true. Lena, safe and sound and in her arms. Relaxed with sleep, trusting Amélie to keep her safe as the night passed. She’d had enough fantasies she refused to acknowledge after that one Christmas, fantasies that turned tragic and admittedly pathetic once Lena had vanished. 

Amélie’s fingertips brushed over the cool softness of Lena’s cheeks. It was like touching lightning; years without had left her starving for gentle contact, muscles unused to tenderness. Considering what the Widowmaker usually used them for…

_No, we will not think of that._ Amélie forced away bile. _Look at her._

Lena looked older. There were shadows under her eyes and exhaustion apparent even as she slept. Still, she looked far better than a dead woman should. Amélie’s eyes wandered to the muted blue glow of the device strapped to Lena’s chest. She had so many questions about that, about Lena, about--about everything since she’d ran away from the scene of the crime. 

A soft murmur. Lena _shimmered_ for a moment, just a flicker, that if Amélie hadn’t had eight eyes she might have missed it before the girl’s eyes opened. Amélie braced herself for a scream, but Lena merely yawned and wiggled in her grip, giving her a sleepy smile. 

“It was real,” she murmured, one hand leaving the tangle of blankets to touch Amélie’s cheek. “I’m so...so bloody glad for that, love. You have no idea.”

Amélie smiled tightly. “I think I might have some, Lena.” 

“Ah...right. Heard about that, a bit.” Lena fidgeted some, moving to make herself comfortable. Her eyes drooped, but she didn’t nod off. “They said you didn’t give up on me…”

When everyone else had. They shared a very poignant, knowing look. Amélie felt exposed, disgusting, but Lena just stared at her and took her in and refused to look away. The hand at her cheek moved to the side of her neck, fingertips lingering at a slogging pulse. Amélie fought off a shudder of pleasure, the heat of Lena’s body searing her down to the core.

“My heart. It’s...It’s slower than the norm,” Amélie warned her bitterly. “Don’t panic.”

“No promises,” Lena said. She swallowed hard when Amélie’s heart failed to stir harder than a weak thump beneath her fingers, but she didn’t panic. Just stared at Amélie with such open, starving tenderness that Amélie parted her lips around her name. All at once Amélie was choked with love, that same burning fervor that had ignited on a Christmas Eve years and years ago. She almost leaned forward, almost pressed her lips against Lena’s before she nearly recoiled in horror. 

Her last kiss had killed her husband. Amélie shut her eyes with a whimper and Lena’s hand moved to cup her face. 

“Don’t panic,” Lena told her, her voice firm. “You’re okay. You’re safe with me, Amélie.” 

“But you’re not safe with me,” Amélie whispered tightly. “You can’t be safe. They turned me into a weapon. A monster--I--” 

Lena’s hand shifted, the tips of her fingers mushing against her lips. Amélie grunted in surprise, popping her eyes open. Lena was pouting up at her, any semblance of anger tempered with softness. Amélie recognized the look and, unbidden, felt a little spurt of laughter bubble in her chest. 

“‘Well, that’s enough of _that_ ,” Lena told her firmly. “You listen what good, Amélie Lacroix! I didn’t run my ass off all over the world to find you, just to have you talk shit about my best friend. You’re no monster. You’re my Amé. The end.”

She gently took Lena’s wrist, pulled it away from her lips. “But--”

“The end, you daft bint!” Lena shoved her face close, glaring at her. Amélie caught her breath, and pursed her lips together. “If it’s the poison you’re worryin’ over, then Angie took care of it already.” Lena hesitated before adding, “Gave the whole lot of us an implant to...to counteract it, if we ever got exposed by Talon.”

Just the name of the organization sent shudders through her body. Amélie screwed her eyes shut as she felt a familiar chill against the back of her neck, forcing herself past the initial panic. 

“And if it’s the--the other you, I mean,” Lena continued, softer, a little less confidently, “then I’m still not afraid. And if it’s because that you’ve got a couple extra limbs and you’re blue, then how bloody shallow do you think I am? I came here for you, an’ I’m not leavin’.” Lena crossed her arms and gave a short, sharp nod. 

After a beat of silence, Lena started to go pink in the cheeks, fidgeting. 

“That--that’s the, uh, end of that, I suppose. Rant over. Rambling done.”

“I missed you,” Amélie managed. “I missed you so much, Lena.” She buried her face in the girl’s hair, and they held each other. 

\--

About an hour later, Lena’s stomach had started an unceasing rumble that coaxed the both of them into rousing. Amélie lead through the winding halls with ease; Lena disliked the familiarity with which she walked through her own little prison, but five years was long enough to explore every nook and cranny of an old Talon base.

She was lead through an empty cafeteria, automatic lights flickering with eerie hums with every move they made. Amélie ducked through a set of double doors and Lena followed her into the actual ‘kitchen’ area. Most of the serving bars had been shoved or toppled over, and had a thin film of dust against them. She felt her brows lift in surprise as Amélie motioned toward an enormous freezer and pantry. 

“Most of it is untouched,” Amélie told her dully. “It was...many months into the c-change that I realized I--Widowmaker--liked a liquid diet.” 

“Liquid?” Lena thought about the deer and other mammals cocooned in their coffins on the upper level and winced slightly. “Ah, roger.” 

She cracked open the freezer, unsure of what to expect. The coolness surprised her--but, again, the Talon base had been built to live on its own--but the stainless steel boxes lining the shelves, covered in inches of thick ice, didn’t. Whatever wasn’t frostbitten was probably doomed to spoil, anyway. 

Except, Lena noted, the box full of vodka. _Score on that front, aye?_

She closed the door and trotted over to the pantry next, peeling it open. She braced herself for the worst--stinking, moldy food, maybe expired bread--and when nothing odious or terrible came, Lena peered closer. Most of the shelves were full of canned food, the tins dusty, but untouched. She wandered in, eyes skimming over the labels. They were in huge portions, of course, the better to feed what would have been a small army. 

Canned bread and powdered milk were among the supplies, and Lena caught boxes as big as her torso full of vacuum sealed, plastic packages. Freeze dried meats and fruit, vegetables--made to last for years untouched, according to the sell by date. Lena gave a low whistle. 

“Found something to your liking?” Amélie called from outside, hunching over a little to peek around the frame and into the pantry. Lena turned her head, and found herself not as perturbed as she should have been to see a spider woman at the door. 

“Yeah, pretty much.” She stood back up. “It’s a bit too late for breakfast or brunch, so we’re going straight to lunch I figure.” 

“We?” 

“Oui,” Lena chirped, unable to resist. “You...well you’re on liquids, yeah? I’m sure there’s a tin of soup in this thing.” 

Amélie made another soft noise. “I...I don’t know, Lena, I--I don’t know if I can. I’m a spider. Spiders don’t really--”

Lena turned on her heel and propped her fists on her hips. Her expression gave Amélie reason to go quiet, eyes wide. She was not frightened, or intimidated; in fact, Amélie gave a sigh a moment later, resigning herself to her fate of getting a proper meal. 

Satisfied, Lena turned on a heel and started to scour the shelves. She made a soft noise of triumph when she found a can of tomato soup. Can, though, was probably an understatement. More like a small barrel. Lena crouched down, grabbed it by the sides, and tried to haul it up. To her credit, she got about halfway before the muscles in her arms and legs begged for a ceasefire and she set it back down with a tremendous thump. 

“Curse these skinny arms,” Lena joked. “Right, should be a lifty thing somewhere in the--”

A shadow crossed from behind her. Lena felt two cold hands beneath her arms and she was easily lifted up and out of the way like a child, or a particularly bad dog. She kicked her legs a little, turning her head. Amélie looked back at her, smirked quietly. There was the scrape of metal against metal, and when Lena looked down she saw that Amélie’s second pair of arms had easily plucked up the soup. 

“Okay, okay, I get it. You’re shredded.” Lena kicked her legs again. “Now put me down!”

“Hmm...no.” Amélie backed out of the pantry, and carefully pushed the door shut with a leg. “This, this I like. Now whenever you’re being a little pest I can just,” she shook Lena slightly for emphasis, “do _this._ ” 

“Oi!” Lena felt her cheeks burn with the flush. 

“ _My adorable little puppy,_ ” Amélie told her in French, which only made the flush deepen. She had no idea that Lena could understand her, and some part of Lena didn’t want to tell her. In fact, a _large_ part of Lena didn’t want to tell her. For the sake of mischief only, of course. 

“That’s not fair, Amé. You know I don’t speak French.” 

“That sounds like a you problem,” Amélie told her, her voice rich with smugness. Lena couldn’t help but giggle, her chest tight even as Amélie gently lowered her to the floor. 

Taking a hit to the pride was worth it. Even if it was just temporary, even if they both still had work ahead, getting Amélie to smile and mean it was worth _anything._ Lena had already promised herself that she’d do anything in her power to keep Amélie safe once she’d been found; this was only acting out on that. Her friend deserved nothing less than her loyalty. 

“Right,” Lena said after a moment, clearing her throat. She started to move deeper into the kitchen, clapping her hands together. “Let’s a can opener, a pot, and get this soup on the fire.” 

A metallic crunch echoed. Lena whipped around and saw Amélie had simply ripped off the top of the can in a jagged circle. 

“Okay, _now_ you’re just showing off.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Amélie said sweetly. 

Together they found a few pots, and after a brief trip to the sink to hose them down, Amélie hefted the can again and poured a healthy amount. Lena ducked back into the pantry, fished out a couple of packets labeled CELERY and followed the instructions to bring it back to un-frozen life. It ended up a little limp and brown at the edges, but it wasn’t rotten and gave a satisfying crunch when Lena bit off a chunk. The onions were next, and once everything was nice and minced, Lena dumped them into the simmering soup. 

“It’s just tomato water if you don’t have a little crunch to it,” she told Amélie, who looked down into the pot with a semi-queasy expression. 

Bowls and huge spoons were found, and washed, and the soup poured into it. Lena happily tucked in, letting the warmth seep through her inside and out. She sat with her back against a floor level cupboard, and only paused when she realized that Amélie hadn’t started to eat her own portion. She merely stared down at her bowl, her lips slightly parted. 

Lena noticed, then, the flickering of her eyes and their murky orange color. She put her bowl down slowly, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Amélie?” 

“It…” Amélie’s voice was ragged. “It looks like blood.” 

And then her eyes were red, and her entire demeanour changed. Lena went tense, and her accelerator started to hum as it registered the faster pace of her heart. 

“Widowmaker,” Lena said after a moment, cautiously. 

The spider’s head turned in her direction, sizing her up. “Lena.” 

“You remember me,” Lena said, unable to disguise the hint of shock in her voice. 

“I do. I wasn’t afraid this time.” Widowmaker looked back at the bowl of soup, and her face crinkled. “I was going to eat.” 

A tense silence bloomed between them. Widowmaker simply stared at the slightly steaming bowl, and Lena forced herself to relax. It was surprisingly easy, since Widowmaker was just...curled on the ground with her. She raised the bowl to her face, and gave it a curious sniff. 

“This is not blood,” Widowmaker said, and had the nerve to hold out the bowl at arm’s length. “It smells bland.” 

“I couldn’t find the salt,” Lena muttered a little defensively. “Is...blood all you eat?” 

“In a sense.” Widowmaker put the bowl down. “Or, I assume so.” 

Lena perked up at that. “Assume? So you’ve never tried anything _but_ , uh, regular spider food?” 

Widowmaker looked at her. Lena had the curious and somewhat humiliating sensation that she was being judged. “Yes,” she said simply. 

“Well, okay! That’s why we started off small, remember?” Widowmaker seemed to hold some, if not all, of Amélie’s memories, after all. “Just pick up your spoon and give it a bite.”

Widowmaker slowly cradled the bowl again, and picked up her spoon. She gathered a small amount of soup and rose it to her lips. Lena was about to cheer when Widowmaker opened her mouth wide, fangs springing free, and made to _chomp_ into the metal. 

“No!” Lena shrieked. Widowmaker jerked back and turned on her with a hiss, the soup on her spoon flying across the floor. “No! Not--not like that kind of bite! No fangs!” 

Widowmaker hissed at her again.

“Oh, don’t you hiss at me, missy,” Lena said, raising a finger. “You’re not gonna sip out the innards of a bloody spoon, are you? Put those away!” 

Widowmaker scowled at her, before the fangs retracted. “The spoon is too big,” she said stiffly. 

Lena ran a hand through her hair, looked at her own bowl, and had an idea. She picked up the bowl and raised it slowly to her mouth. 

“Sip it like this, then.” Lena took an exaggerated sip and smacked her lips for effect. “Tasty.” 

Widowmaker hesitated, before she copied her. Lena couldn’t see her face when she took her first taste, but when she lowered the bowl she looked confused. Her jaw flexed, and Lena heard a muted crunch; the celery, no doubt. She swallowed, tomato juice smeared across her lips, and then tilted her head to Lena. 

“It’s...good,” Widowmaker told her after a moment. Her eyes flickered. “It doesn’t taste like blood.” 

And then the red of her eyes were gone, and Amélie was staring at her again. Lena half expected the drugged, sleepy stupor again, but to her shock--to her relief--Amélie looked faintly flustered and embarrassed. She wiped at her lips and tsked at the mess, but as she shuffled, pulling her legs closer around her, she smiled. 

“You were right,” Amélie said softly. “It--the crunch. I like it.” 

\--

Lena tried not to think about the kind of people who would have lived in the room as she took hot shower. She tried not to think about the corpses hanging up above from webbing, or the horrors that it implied. She certainly didn’t think about what the people had done to Amélie to twist her body, split her mind in two. How they’d kidnapped her, how they’d killed Gérard through her, how they’d ruined Amélie’s entire life--

Lena barely resisted the urge to punch the tile of the shower, breathing steam. She counted out the tiles by threes, smoothed back her wet hair, and pushed it to the back of her mind. Compartmentalizing it for later. 

All she had to do was call Angela, call Overwatch--it was coming back via the recall, after all--and they’d pick Amélie up, and take her home. They’d fix what they could, undo all the evil that Talon had forced on her, and things would go back to…

Well, not normal. Amélie would still be a widow, and Lena would still be a temporally displaced sin against physics. But they’d be okay, Lena thought. They’d get through it. 

She lost count with the optimistic thought and hurried to finish her shower, scrubbing herself down with salvaged military shampoo and soap and hopping out. She dried herself off and dragged on the black sweatpants and plain white t-shirt--both of which sagged on her much smaller frame--and strapped the accelerator back on top. She could go without it--the anchor itself was what kept her in the present--but the thought of not having a quick escape in case something happened made her uneasy.

Unbidden, Lena’s hands twitched for the gun she’d left in the bin. Guilt choked her, but Lena couldn’t simply put aside years of fighting and instinct in a single day. Or, two days. However many days. 

Amélie was waiting for her outside of the room, curled up on the floor in what Lena assumed was her version of a proper lady’s position. Her head lifted and there was a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, which made Lena’s heart flutter pleasantly. When Amélie rose up--slowly, as if not to startle her--Lena felt a curious ease at walking at her side. 

“I’m sorry if there isn’t much in the way of...entertainment here,” Amélie said apologetically. “A blizzard took down the wifi a few years back.” 

“Oh, yikes! You were safe, though?” A stupid question, considering Amélie was, well, _right next to her,_ but much like her survival instinct, worrying about Amélie’s safety had become habit as well.

“Mmhm.” Amélie smiled down at her. “I made due. They had an extensive library made here, which helped with the boredom.”

“Really?”

“Really!” Amélie took her hand this time, and Lena’s heart gave another lurching pull. “Here, I’ll show you.” 

Lena wasn’t sure what on earth a Talon base would have need of a library for--everything about the place seemed like a screaming mix of luxury and nefarious research. She supposed that a Talon branch in France, of all places, seemed as good a place as any to mix frivolity and horror. But the room Amélie lead her into held none of the darkness the rest of the base had. A touch to a set of switches had a comfortable light blooming from overhead like a flower. The walls were lined with books, thick shelves arranged like a labyrinth of hardback leather and stories. 

Many books were already missing, some stacked high into the corners from where Amélie spent her time. Lena looked up and found Amélie looking at her nervously. 

“This place is pretty cozy, innit?” Lena sent her a grin and Amélie’s nerves appeared to melt away. “I got an idea, Amé. Tell me if it’s dumb or not though, yeah?” 

Amélie inclined her head to encourage her to continue, and Lena moved over toward one of the shelves. 

“Say we--or you, rather, sorry--move your beds and stuff in here, yeah? You like this place, and it’s a lot less…” She drifted off, trying to find the words. “Morbid?”

“I…” Amélie looked around, and wrung her hands in thought. 

Lena let her stew over that while she picked up three books, looking over their spines. _Gone With The Wind, Sherlock Holmes,_ and some fancy French title that Lena couldn’t translate. She’d always been a better speaker than a reader. 

“I think,” Amélie began, drawing Lena’s attention back to her as she set the books on the shelf. Amélie shifted her weight from one side to another, legs ticking nervously against the library’s carpet. “I think I might...like that, actually.” 

\--

The Widowmaker awoke. The memory of her birth was as vivid as it always was around this time of the year; needles piercing sallow skin, injecting more chemicals that remained untested. The Amélie Lacroix that had been captured, tortured, was not the same that was allowed to return to her husband. She had repressed much of her memory of her kidnapping and subsequent ‘reprogramming’, delegating it to a version of herself that had the wherewithal to withstand it. 

Talon had wanted to name their pet project Arachne. The scientists responsible for the toxins rampant in Amélie’s body, for the alter they forced into being, nicknamed it the future Widowmaker. 

The scientists and soldiers stationed at the death trap of a base thought they had succeeded once Amélie had killed her husband with a kiss goodbye. Transporting her to Annecy and the mountains in hiding, and putting her through more of the same to encourage the Widowmaker’s growth and independence was deemed a ‘good idea’ at the time. What better way to make an assassin than to literally make her from the ground up, after all?

But they had made a significant error. The Widowmaker, at her core, was still Amélie. She was simply Amélie without the inhibition of fear and morals in regards to keeping herself safe. 

_Survive through any means necessary._ Talon had laid out the programming in this manner, in an attempt to manipulate her into becoming cold and ruthless and _stupid_. 

The Widowmaker had thought it only fair to oblige them. The massacre had not made her feel better, but it had secured her safety, and that was the most important part. Widowmaker did not allow Amélie to remember the full scope of the carnage, just as she didn’t allow the memories of her hunts or other kills she made. Amélie did not need to know these things, and so she didn’t. 

The Widowmaker, on the other hand, remembered everything, every last scrap of Amélie’s life prior to being taken. So it was no surprise to find that Amélie’s nightmare fueled panic had awoken her, and that she found herself curled beside Lena Oxton once again. She observed the girl in her slumber, lit up only by the muted glow of the harness she wore always. 

The Widowmaker remembered more of Lena by the day. Little things that Amélie had picked up on; Lena still did things in threes. She stirred her soups and tea three times, or in multiples of. When she tapped out anxious beats, she did so predictably. 

They spoke, rarely, her and Lena. She was always tucked back into Amélie’s psyche when Lena woke up, the remains of blood lingering on the back of her tongue. Amélie did not suffer much panic or fear when around Lena, which were the main triggers for the Widowmaker to take command. But sometimes Amélie would let herself drift off, mind slipping--dissociation of a more natural sort--and the Widowmaker would step in. 

Lena always seemed cautious around her, but welcoming in a way the Widowmaker had never expected. They were curious about the other, she sensed it. She wanted to touch Lena, in ways Amélie had remembered craving. The Widowmaker reached out of her own will, touched the warmth of Lena’s cheek as she slept. 

Her heart raced when Lena turned into the touch, trustingly, and murmured nonsense. She did not stir, and Widowmaker--in a compulsion that she did not recognize as her own, but more from Amélie--tucked a bit of hair behind her ear, then pulled the blankets higher. Though relocation to the library brought them closer to the center of the base, and therefore closer to the heating systems, the incoming fall chill could not be ignored.

Neither could hunger. Widowmaker rose from the nest and went to the door. Animals were burrowing down more and more, avoiding the network of webbing and death Widowmaker had used for years. She passed by the cafeteria, as was normal, and was again struck by impulse. She hesitated, went back to the cafeteria’s entrance, then made way for the kitchen. 

She remembered that Lena and Amélie had worked hard to clean up marginally, organize things; the freezer had been emptied out of everything that had been ruined beyond salvation, in order to make room for storing anything that wasn’t eaten between the two of them. Widowmaker herself had taken the bag of refuse to the surface--where Amélie refused to go--dumped it into the woods. The food, not the plastics; Widowmaker was many things, but she did not litter.

She approached the freezer, and found a note in Lena’s chicken scratch scrawl. It was a simple list of directions detailing how to reheat the clam chowder she had made the night previous. Widowmaker read over the note again and again; she thought of the routine of going to the surface, of residing with the spiders above, with the dead and rotten, and then she opened the freezer, and prepared breakfast. 

\--

The suit had been a lucky find. Lena had been snooping through closets and found a hazmat suit, along with various cleaning supplies. A bit more digging in maintenance had provided a fire ax, a shovel, and a lot of fucking mops. So many mops. 

Winter was around the corner, and already Lena could think of a gift or two that she could give Amélie. She’d tried to convince Amélie time and time again to come home with her, to follow Overwatch, to call in Angela and Winston to see what they could do. Amélie had been so vehement in her refusal that Widowmaker had crawled out, looked vaguely betrayed, and scuttled off into the depths of the base where Lena had never been, and could never follow. It was frustrating beyond measure, and Lena would be lying if she admitted that her insistence was simply in Amélie’s wellbeing. 

Of course 99% of it _was_. Obviously. The other 1% was just Lena going bloody _stir crazy_. She’d been doing her best to keep herself occupied with exploring the base, with cleaning it up as best she could. With making dinner and having Amélie out with her more and more, teaching her friend how to smile--teaching _Widowmaker_ how to smile, at that. But simple domesticity could only keep her busy for so long; Lena craved change, progress. 

So what was more progressive than making the upstairs a little less...nightmarish? 

Lena donned the suit and gathered supplies, knowing that Amélie would be sulking in her secret hiding place for hours yet. Getting would have been an issue were it not for the accelerator, though blinking _up_ was significantly more difficult that just in a cardinal direction. Still, Lena never let that stop her before. She timed each jump and burst through a layer of webbing, ending up back in the pitch black, frosty gloom. She fumbled with the front of her suit, hiking up the plastic bag she was using to carry her tools, and managed to turn on the flashlight clipped to the air regulator in the suit’s chest. 

Lena set the bag down, and pulled out the axe. 

“Time to get to work, then.” 

She cut down the animals, first, blinking up to the rafters and simply chopping at the strings of webbing that connected the cocoons to the ceiling. Spiders rained from above, trying to pierce the suit to retaliate, or scuttled away from the intruder mangling their home. Lena winced every time the heel of her boots caught a spider, whispering apologies that fogged the inside of her helmet. 

It took hours to cut them down, and longer still to haul desiccated animal bodies out to be tossed into the forest, out of sight. Lena used a web coated fire extinguisher to prop open the door, letting in cold air and sunlight. She hoped it would encourage the spiders to run back out, too, but she doubted it. 

She put off touching the corpses of Talon for as long as she could. She brought out a rake and hauled it across the floor, ripping up nests and webs alike. Hordes scattered; eggs were salvaged or stomped on. Lena tried to minimize the death toll as best she could, but there were just so many that it was impossible. 

More impossible, she noted with dismay, was getting any of this done in a day without Amélie’s knowledge. The upstairs, though a single floor, was still enormous. Even if all the damage Widowmaker had done was restricted to the lobby, it was still five years. 

But Lena wasn’t one to give up. She stretched her aching body free of kinks, and continued to rake. Sweat plastered the suit against her body, and even with the regulator it was getting harder and harder to breathe. Daylight was fast to fade, too, but Lena had gotten the floor _done._ There’d be no eating off of it, obviously, not unless Lena could get her hands on a pressure washer and a couple dozen liters of bleach, but it was free of webbing. Huge piles sat outside next to the ruined cars, and thought there were still scores of spiders slinking around it wasn’t an overwhelming horde like Lena had first encountered. 

She set the rake down, grabbed a deck brush, and turned to make for one of the far walls. Widowmaker stood behind her. Lena shrieked as she startled, the broom spinning off into the air.

“I thought…” Widowmaker’s lips trembled. “I thought you had left. For good.” 

“W-what--what, no--” Lena wheezed, hand over her heart. “God, Widow, no! Why on earth _would_ I?”

“We fought.” Widowmaker’s voice was soft. “I assumed you had just...had enough…” 

“I’m so sorry,” Lena said, taking a step forward hesitantly. “I shouldn’t have...I wanted…” She looked down to the cleared ground, guilty. “I just wanted to clean the upstairs a bit. Amélie’s scared to be up here, you said...So I just thought I’d make it easier for you. In case you, you know. Ever wanted to come on up out here on your own.”

Widowmaker was silent. Lena kept her eyes on the ground, shaking. 

“I wouldn’t leave you after some--after a fight. I told you, I was stickin’ with you till the end and I meant it. I should have said something, but I wanted...I wanted it to be a present.” 

When there was yet more silence, Lena lifted her head. She wasn’t sure who was looking at her; the eyes crowning Amélie’s forehead were still blazing red like Widowmaker, but there were two soft, golden eyes staring at her. They were wet, Lena realized. With _tears._

“A...Amélie?” Lena ventured softly, taking another step. Amélie shook her head slowly, then frowned. Nodded. Shook her head again. 

“I don’t know,” she whispered, and then Widowmaker was back. She looked down at Lena, and then reached out a hand. Lena took it, and twined their fingers together. Something had happened, something neither of them understood. 

“Tomorrow,” Widowmaker said, softly, “I will help you with the rest.” She cast a look around the lobby, then to the propped open door. She stared at the outside for a long time, and nodded. “I will help you.”

\--

They carved out a mass grave from the earth, Widowmaker’s powerful legs churning up half frozen earth with effort as Lena hauled it away with the shovel. They pulled the bodies of Talon into the pit, covered it up, and that was that.

\--

It occurred to Amélie that she knew nothing about Lena. She knew the basics, the ‘important’ bits--that Lena had been an only child, that she’d graduated with honors from flight school, what her birthday was, her favorite color--but she knew nothing of Lena’s early life, and she knew _nothing_ about what had happened to Lena when the Slipstream had malfunctioned. 

Curled together in the library, enjoying a mug of hot chocolate each, Amélie finally found the courage to ask. 

“Lena.” She reached out, and touched the metal contraption that Lena never went without. “I...please…” 

Lena set down her chocolate and held her hand. “Suppose you finally want to know the gritty details, hm?”

“I’ve ached for them, chérie,” Amélie said in response. Lena acknowledge that with a little laugh, and then went very quiet. Amélie noticed that her hand shook against her own, and she set aside her own mug and pulled Lena close. 

That seemed to calm her. She breathed in, breathed out. 

“The Slipstream...well, it was supposed to be a teleportin’ fighter. You know that much, yeah?”

Amélie nodded. Lena licked her lips. And then told her about the Slipstream, about the malfunction. About chronal disassociation, about the feeling of her body ripping apart at the atmoic level--to become a living ghost, unable to speak, or hear, or feel, or recognize any sensation. Losing days and weeks at a time as she vanished from reality. Amélie didn’t realize she was holding tighter until Lena let out a soft noise--a whimper, a whine--and she saw all four arms clutching at Lena. She loosened her grip slightly, frowning when Lena shook her head. 

“It’s okay to be tight. It’s...anchoring,” Lena said. “But that’s...that’s about it. I was stuck in the Between while Winston worked on the accelerator.” She rapped her knuckles against the harness.” 

“It keeps you here?” 

Lena’s eyes shifted. “Yeah,” she said, but Amélie could sense that was only a half truth. She let it go, though; after she’d lost herself to Widowmaker trying to go into her own trauma, Lena was allowed that.

It explained why Lena was never without it, and her abilities. Curious, Amélie prodded her again. “If you can control time, then have you ever tried to…” 

She trailed off. _To go back and find me? To stop this from happening? To stop me from…_

Lena caught her meaning and her face fell. “It...it doesn’t work like that, not without overloading the accelerator’s limiters. Not without going in Between again, and even then, it wouldn’t be, well. It wouldn’t be _this_ time.” 

“What do you mean?” Amélie wasn’t upset, strangely, at the knowledge that Lena would not be able to go back and stop Talon from whatever it was they had done to her. 

Lena left her embrace and went deep into the library. She came back with a few sheets of copy paper left forgotten in one of the old, dusty printers, and a pen salvaged from a writing desk in a corner. Plopping down, she drew a set of lines and labeled them A, B, and C. 

“So, alright. Here’s us, here and now, yeah?” Lena tapped the pen against the line labeled A. “You and me, we live our lives nice and simple--we make some choices, like, oh! I’ll have coffee today, maybe a croissant for breakfast.” 

Like a tree’s branches, Lena drew off little squiggles from the main line. Amélie watched her, rapt. 

“But, see, there’s a _different_ version of us that lived the exact same,” Lena tapped line B, “only, maybe we had tea instead of coffee. A scone instead of a croissant. Little minor things, for an example, but the end result is inherently different.” 

“What about line, ah, C,” Amélie asked. 

“Well, see, that one’s different from the whole ground up,” Lena said. “In C, let’s say, I identified as a guy. Completely different set of experiences entirely, different choices to branch out. And this is just the surface of the ice, y’know? There are thousands, millions of different outcomes.” She hesitated, then shaded in the spaces in between each of the major lines. “And this space, here? This, this is the place between it. This is where I was. Where I’ll go, if I ever…” 

Lena gripped at a strap, staring at the crude scratches she’d made on paper. Her complexion was pale, and she looked shaken. 

“The accelerator may not let me turn back time itself, but I can manipulate my own in little ways. Three seconds forward, usually.” She looked up and gave Amélie a grin that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “So I guess it was foreshadowing, really.” 

“You don’t have to pretend to be okay with it,” Amélie told her. “Not with me. Never with me, Lena.”

That seemed to rock Lena off balance. Her eyes grew wide and glossed over with tears an instant later. She opened her mouth and closed it, blinked rapidly. Both hands were on her harness, now, gripping it like it was her lifeline. 

Then, she took a breath, and undid a latch. 

“Lena!” Amélie gasped, reaching out to stop her. “What--don’t take that off! You just _said--_ ” 

But Lena was too quick. In seconds, she was hauling the metal contraption off of her shoulders. To Amélie’s shock, the blue glow never faded, only dimmed. Lena raised her hands to the billowy button down she’d found in a scientist’s room, and started to undo the buttons. Amélie’s mouth went dry for a different reason than fear, her heart picking up speed. She could feel the chill of Widowmaker creeping up her neck, felt her settle behind her eyes in wait. 

Lena parted the sides of the shirt. It wasn’t the blue device that glowed like her harness had that caught Amélie’s breathless attention; it was the scars, horrible and pale, that curled around the device, stretched down to Lena’s sternum. 

“This is the anchor,” Lena whispered. Her hands trembled. “It’s more important than my bloody heart, honestly.”

Amélie hesitated only a moment, and reached out. Her cold hand covered the anchor that sat in Lena’s chest, another reaching to tip the girl’s chin up. Tears rolled down Lena’s cheeks, her cheeks flushed ruddy red, her expression faintly tormented. 

“There is nothing more important than your heart, Lena.” Amélie’s voice was firm. “There is...nothing that could compare to it. That kind, and gentle heart, it’s irreplaceable, Lena. _You_ are irreplaceable.” 

Lena’s breath hitched and she sobbed, head dropping. Amélie wrapped her arms around Lena and brought her close, her legs stretching around her until she was surrounded. Would she feel protected? Amélie hoped so, as Lena sniffled and sobbed against her chest. 

The words rested on her tongue. _I love you. I have loved you for years. I want to be with you for as long as you’ll have me, as long as you’ll let me._

She did not say them, in the end. She didn’t know if it was the right time, or if she would be rejected even now. But the chill of Widowmaker never left her, only settling in deeper. She wondered what that meant. 

\--

Though there was no signal and no wifi, Lena never went far without her phone and charger. Most of her apps still worked, at least the little free ones that were more for when she was bored in waiting rooms. Amélie was off resting and Lena just couldn’t sleep anymore, so she wandered off to the old office where Amélie had rested in before, finding an outlet and plugging it up. 

She checked the date. Winced. Closed the calendar and tried very hard not to think about how worried Winston and the others in Overwatch were. To Lena, she’d spent over half a year with Amélie. To them, she’d been _gone_ just as long. Maybe they thought she was dead. Maybe they were having a second funeral already.

Lena shook her head, like she could just shake the thoughts out. Took a breath and brought up the virtual keyboard app she loved, projected it out. 

No one knew she played piano. It was a little secret Lena kept to herself; inevitably, someone would ask her to play a song she’d never heard, and then wonder why she couldn’t read the sheet music for it. Lena was self taught, in a sense; she just spent a long time banging away on the keys, teaching her fingers how to work independent of the other, until something sounded good. Then she’d just listen to a song over and over and over until she could hear it in her dreams, and play it out just for herself. 

It was stress relief. She let out a sigh, unhampered by the weight of the harness. It’d been a week since she’d pretty much ripped open her ribcage to show Amélie the result, and there was no real reason to blink around except out of habit and convenience. So Lena had decided to try being...without. 

It was humbling. It was terrifying. Lena thought she could get used to it. 

She was slow at first, just plucking out notes on the synthesized keyboard. She wished she could have real ivory under her fingertips, real pedals to push, but that was a luxury she’d learned to live without. Eventually, instead of just random notes, a melody formed. Lena smiled to herself, and parted her lips. 

“ _Tale as old as time…_ ”

She kept her voice as low as she could. Amélie’s hearing wasn’t completely superhuman, but with how empty the base was, sound tended to carry easily and she didn’t want to wake Amélie up with her terrible singing. 

Around the midway mark, she started to get creative with the song--adding runs and trills where she liked, humming the chorus. A smile played on her mouth as she came to the end, a bittersweet feeling of having it end so soon rolling around in chest like time itself. 

“ _Song as old as rhyme, Beauty and the--_ ” 

There was movement in the doorway. Lena looked up, just as the last word tumbled from her lips. Her voice strangled it midway, and she froze up, pinky on the right note just a touch too long. She drew her hands back, swiped the keyboard away, her face on fire. 

Amélie looked like she was about to cry again. 

“Oh, oh my god,” Lena began, already stumbling to her feet. “Amélie, listen, I didn’t mean--I don’t think _you’re_ a beast, I, I just--”

“Lena,” Amélie began, her voice thick, “that was _beautiful._ ” 

“I…” Lena slumped. “Huh?” 

“That was beautiful! I had no idea you played and you sing like an _angel_ , chérie,” Amélie gushed, stepped inside the room. Her hands were clasped to her chest, and Lena watched her smile. Lena met her halfway, one hand reaching up to rub the back of her neck, cheeks flushed. She smiled shyly. 

“You really think so?”

“Yes,” Amélie breathed. “Would you play it again?” 

“For you? ‘Course!” Lena beamed now, and a sudden--if, admittedly, cheesy as all hell--idea came to her. “Okay. Meet me at the cafeteria in an hour. Wear something wooshy!” 

Amélie snorted back a laugh. “ ‘Wooshy?’ “ 

“You know! Flowy!” Lena scooped up her phone and winked, and she was ducking around Amélie and running down the halls. 

\--

Amélie found the courage to break into the director’s personal quarters, nose wrinkling at the smell of stale air and the dust coating every surface. She coughed, delicately, and scuttled for dead woman’s closet. 

There were mostly pant suits and crisply ironed shirts, still covered by a plastic film that kept them ironed and pristine even after so long. Amélie did not know what she was looking for. Finding any sort of cover that wasn’t the specialized suit was...a challenge. Most shirts didn’t come with four sleeves. 

She found a sparkle of purple, and when she pulled it out she found a rather scandalous dress. It would be floor length for a normal woman, but it had no sleeves and was backless to boot. It glittered in the hall lights and when Amélie swayed it on its hanger, the dress seemed sufficiently ‘wooshy’. She had a suspicion of what Lena was planning, and the childish simplicity left her giggling. 

She took the dress, and slid it on the human half of her body with minimal difficulty. The dress had slits in the sides, letting it drape somewhat nicely. She found an elastic and, with some difficulty, managed to tie her hair back instead of just having it drape down her shoulders, her back. 

Amélie looked at herself in the mirror. She thought she looked...almost pretty. 

When she pushed open the doors of the cafeteria, she found the lights off, save for a few illuminating a cleared space. Some of the tables were shoved off to the side, forming a circle. Lena stood off at the edge if it, fiddling with a bowl and her phone. She wore slacks and a button up that was a little creased, in need of an ironing, and combined with her her bright white running shoes she made for an unfortunate sight. 

Amélie was still hopelessly in love all the same. She stepped into the light and cleared her throat. Lena turned to see her, and her breath left her in an audible little _puh_. She dragged her hands through her messy hair, and Amélie saw her cheeks flush. 

“That’s,” Lena tried. “You’re...oh my god…” 

“Is it that bad?” Amélie teased. 

“Bad? If this is you at your bad, then you’ll bloody kill me at your best,” Lena said with a laugh. She turned back to the bowl, and pressed her phone’s screen. 

There was silence as Lena stepped back to her, and tried to draw herself up tall. “Mind leading, love? I’ve got two left feet and you have, like. Eight right ones.” 

As the first few notes began to trail in, Lena’s recorded whistling a stand in for the flutes that would have played, Amélie gathered Lena’s hands in her own and sent her a smile. 

And they danced. 

\--

“Boosh!” 

Lena whooped with glee as the snowball found purchase in the back of Amélie’s head. She raised both hands in the air and cackled her victory. 

“She shoots, she scores! What’d’you say to that, love?!” Amélie did not move, or react. Lena tilted her head. “Amé?” 

The spider turned her head, revealing eight red eyes and a smirk. Four hands rose, each holding a snowball. Widowmaker gave a throaty chuckle at Lena’s terrified expression. 

“Oh, shit,” Lena said, and was promptly knocked off her feet as three snowballs smacked directly into her face. Luckily her goggles kept her eyes safe, but the same could not be said for the rest of her face. She groaned as she laid in the snow, hearing the soft crunch as Widowmaker approached. 

“ _Une balle, un mort,_ ” Widowmaker purred as Lena cleared the snow from her face. 

“Okay, first off; rude, that’s cheating,” Lena giggled, accepting a hand as Widowmaker hauled her up. “Second of all, you prick, that was _three_ bullets, not one.” 

“Semantics, Lena.” Widowmaker pursed her lips, and before Lena could figure out what that expression meant for her, she felt the last snowball shoved up her shirt. She shrieked as she danced away from Widowmaker, lashing with a filthy streak of cursing. 

Widowmaker laughed as she stumbled backwards. Then, her laughter stopped, and she snapped, “ _Lena!_ ” 

Lena looked up just as her foot hit open air. She sucked in a breath, dimly wishing she’d put her harness on, and wheeled her arms. Widowmaker lunged for her. Lena squeezed her eyes shut as Widowmaker curled around her, and as gravity took hold. It turned out that it wasn’t as dramatic or fatal as Widowmaker had assumed; it was a surprising drop, of course, but Lena wouldn’t have died from it. 

They tumbled down the powdery hill, cushioned by the snow, Lena surrounded by arms and carapace. When they settled to a stop, Widowmaker slowly uncurled from around her, just a little, panting as she looked Lena over. 

“I’m in one piece,” Lena breathed, patting her chest. “Dizzy and cold and a little embarrassed, but in one piece. That’ll teach you to put snow up my shirt, eh?” 

Widowmaker relaxed after another moment, chuffing. “Yes,” she murmured, curling closer. “Yes, it will.”

Lena giggled, and watched as Widowmaker slowly receded. Only...she didn’t go away, not entirely. Her eyes wavered red-orange, golden in the light and deep red in the shadows. Balanced; equal. Lena wasn’t sure who she was looking up at; Amélie, or Widowmaker. Her hair, inky black and silky, fell around them like a curtain. Somehow, the snow wasn’t cold; the chill of the air didn’t burn her lungs. It was almost warm, even. 

“Lena,” Amélie breathed. “Lena...I feel…” 

She leaned closer. Lena’s breath hitched. 

“How do you feel, love?” Lena murmured back. 

“I feel alive. I feel...I feel _whole_ with you.” 

And Amélie closed the distance, her cold lips brushing over Lena’s. Lena gasped into it, arched, and her arms wound around Amélie’s neck. She felt the spider’s arms come around her tighter, one tangling in her hair--another around her shoulders, one around her waist, a fourth curling possessively against her lower back, god, yes--and moaned at the sharp press of teeth against her lip. 

She hadn’t ever really given thought to how she’d felt about Amélie in regards to romance, not deeply. She’d known that Amélie was the most important person in her heart, that she’d move Heaven and Hell and Earth and beyond to keep her safe. To make her happy. 

Lena supposed that she’d always been a little in love with Amélie, and just not acknowledged it. That seemed like something she’d do, anyway. In any case, this felt so-- _right._ Like 

Her lips started to sting, but not unpleasantly so. Like she’d eaten something slightly spicy, if she had to compare it. She whined in her throat as Amélie pulled back, gasping harshly. When Lena opened her eyes, licked her lips, she tasted something bittersweet. Then the implant reacted, Angela’s nanobots swarming to her throat, her lips. 

Poison, Lena realized dimly. The sting was from the poison--poison that even now dripped down Amélie’s lips, steamed in the cold. 

“No…” It was a moan in Amélie’s throat. “No, no no--no, I can’t, I _can’t--_ ”

“That’s right, you can’t.” Lena tightened her grip around Amélie’s neck. “Remember what I said, love? You can’t hurt me with your poison. You can’t kill me.” She leaned in, drugged, and boldly lapped the venom from Amélie’s chin, drawing a ragged rasp from the both of them; Amélie’s from shock, Lena’s from desire. 

“Lena,” Amélie whispered, her cheeks flushed maroon. Lena had never seen her blush--had thought it impossible--and gave a cheeky grin in return. “There is something...I need to tell you.” 

“Well? Go ahead, then.” Lena’s voice dropped an octave. “Tell me.” 

Amélie looked between her eyes, and her lips. In French, agonized, Amélie whined, “ _I love you so much, Lena._ ”

Their lips met again, shorter. Lena parted only long enough to say, “ _I love you too,_ ” in French, heard Amélie’s startled groan, and kissed her a third time.


End file.
